


Anything, Something

by madsthenerdygirl



Series: i carry your heart with me [i carry it in my heart] [1]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I Took My Babies and Made Them Suffer, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Self-Loathing Up the Wazoo, Shameless Smut, Slow Build, Slow Burn, There's a Lot of Sex in Here Considering Nobody is Talking about Feelings, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, eventual OT3, like wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-13 20:31:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 54,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14120217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Saving the world is a lot more straightforward than untangling the threads of what you want.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a little piece of smut for captainofthefallen and turned into a 20+ chapter monster of emotional pain which is all her fault because she dragged me into this show and made me fall in love with Garcia "Captain Garbage" Flynn, Lucy "I am the Best" Preston and Wyatt "Internally Panicking Puppy" Logan. Will update as much/often as I can. Heed the tags!
> 
> (Somewhere there's a poor Rufus banging his head against the wall throughout all of this.)

It didn’t start out as anything.

Well, of course it was something. It was electricity right underneath her skin, that humming feeling that you got when you were standing next to an electric fence, sensing that touch of power but knowing it was dangerous to get any closer. It was a wild, uncontrollable pulse, one that sent a thrill through her when he grabbed her, wires getting crossed as she registered the feeling of danger but not the way that she should.

But it wasn’t… anything. It didn’t carry the significance, the happy weight, that sleeping with Wyatt had.

Wyatt.

That was how it all started in the first place.

She was hurting. How could she not be? A man looks you in the eye and basically tells you that you’re his reason for living, and then his dead wife shows up again and suddenly it’s awkward and you… you’re just…

You’re left alone again.

She was alone. She had no sister. No mother. No fiancé, although frankly it had only been fair to cut the poor guy loose. He’d been in love with a woman who didn’t, couldn’t, exist anymore.

Now she had no lover, either.

Rufus and Jiya were painfully sympathetic. She didn’t know if Rufus had told her but Jiya could sense it anyway. If Denise or Conner knew, they were doing a very good job at acting oblivious.

And then there was Flynn.

Flynn, who seemed to only want to talk to her. Flynn, who looked at her like she was the only person in the room, in the whole world. Flynn, who through all of this, she still trusted.

She couldn’t say exactly what it was that made her cross the line. It felt like something that had been building forever, made all the stronger by how she’d tried to deny it. But then she was on trial for witchcraft in Salem, men dragging her along no matter how she fought—and she and Rufus both really need to invest in some self-defense classes or something—and Flynn was bursting in the door.

The rage that contorted his face she had only seen once or twice before. It should have frightened her.

The growl in his voice when he spoke was almost more animal than man, full of fury. “Let go of my wife.”

It was just a cover, of course, and one she’d thought Flynn had just adopted in order to watch Rufus’s hilarious reaction to hearing that, but right now, in that moment, it felt a little too raw. She wasn’t anyone’s wife of course and didn’t exactly want to be, but the feeling of possessiveness that went with it was painful. Nobody claimed her like that, not anymore. Not Amy, or Mom, or Wyatt, or anyone.

Except now, Flynn.

He charged at them, knocking one man flat and breaking something in the other man’s face, if his anguished cry was anything to go by. Then he was grabbing her, gathering her up, bending down over her to check her for bruising.

“What have they done?” He asked. His voice was almost unbearably soft, such a contrast to the inhuman growling in his tone a moment ago. But she knew that her answer would decide the fate of the men around her, clutching their injuries.

“Nothing,” she told him. “They didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.”

There was a dark flash in his eyes that told her he didn’t quite believe her, but he let it go. His arms stayed firmly around her as he stood up to his full height, glaring at the men like he was the Devil, proving—as some in Salem were whispering—that he would come to protect his own.

“You will not accuse my wife again.” Flynn’s voice was almost but not quite back to that growl, almost a purr, really, but a dangerous one.

She shivered instinctively. In fear or arousal?

Both, she thought.

She held it in, even as she felt like she was a leaky jug, water spilling out of cracks as she tried desperately to plug them all up. She held it in until they were back at their small cabin in the woods, a bit away from the town. Rufus was out back, tinkering with the Lifeboat.

“Are you certain that you’re all right?” Flynn asked. “I know you were lying because you did not want them dead, but—”

The cracks were too wide now. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. Everyone was making her crack and she needed someone to hold her together because she couldn’t do it by herself anymore.

Flynn caught her instinctively as she threw herself at him, going up on her tiptoes so that she could kiss him. For a split second he was stiff, confused, but then he made a sound like a wounded animal and was kissing her back.

There was nothing of Wyatt in this. Nothing of any of the men and women she’d slept with before. There was a primal hunger to this, a kind of harsh, rough edge that barely towed the line of violence.

Good.

She arched up into him, clawing at him, devouring him. She’d once thought that he wanted to trick her into losing herself. Now she wanted him to. She wanted him to make her forget everything.

Flynn seemed more than happy to oblige her. He scooped her up easily—so easily, it made her shiver and gasp in his arms—and pressed her up against the wall.

Yes, yes, this, she thought. No bed. She’d do something embarrassing like cry if this was on a bed. She wanted the rough wood scratching into her back through the fabric. She wanted her head to bang against it as she bared her throat for him to nip at.

Neither of them said anything. It was all grunts and moaning. At first he tried to undo her clothes properly but she smacked his hands away. Flynn’s eyes flashed with genuine hurt, and so she took his wrist in her hand and guided it up underneath her skirt.

Understanding flashed in his eyes then and he gave her a starving wolf sort of smile, his hand sliding up along the inside of her thigh. She shook around him, unable to hold in her gasps as his deft fingers started to play with her.

Oh, he was good, she’d always known he’d be good. She dug her nails into his shoulders, small whines of protest leaving her throat as he teased her. She didn’t want teasing. Maybe another night, but right now she just wanted to get lost. She’d spent so long holding on to the cliff’s edge. Now she was trying to fall off it.

She grabbed his wrist with one hand, stopping him. Looking straight into his eyes—they were the same height when she was held in his arms like this—she slid her other hand down inside his pants, palming him.

Flynn made a kind of choked growling noise and reached down to help her. She arched her back, trying to give him more room as he grabbed her thighs and began to press into her.

It felt like she couldn’t breathe. Partially because it had been a long time. Partially because she hadn’t let him prep her as much as she probably should have. Partially because it all suddenly felt real in a way that it hadn’t before. There was no denying what was happening, no escaping it—not that she wanted to. But this was more alive than she’d felt in ages.

Running for your life, of course, made you feel alive. But not like this. That was so much fear and adrenaline. This was… this was affirmation. This was connecting with someone, finally, after having so many people taken away from her.

Flynn set a rough, almost punishing pace, and she let him. She wanted him to. She rolled her hips to meet his every thrust, let him lick the sweat from her neck and scrape his teeth along the line of her jaw. He wasn’t marking her, not quite—they couldn’t afford that—but it was close enough to make her shiver even more violently in his arms.

She dug her nails into his shoulders and raked them down his back. He was always wearing some leather jacket or other, nobody would ever see. He had to kiss her to muffle her screams as he got faster, harder, pinned against him, against the wall, trapped and only able to writhe as he drove her brains out of her head and pushed pleasure in instead.

It wasn’t so much that she orgasmed as she felt herself coasting in a new headspace. Everything fell away and it was just the sensations of her body. There wasn’t one peak. It was an airplane flight, up high in the air, gliding for hours.

He pulled her tight to him, his hands digging into her ass and thighs as he jerked a final time. She groaned as he emptied inside of her and made a mental note to get some Plan B and to figure out where Jiya was getting condoms from. Because that—that felt good, him marking her up inside. But an unwanted pregnancy was the last thing they needed right now, especially with her time travel. Who knew what could happen.

Slowly, he pulled back. His hands roamed her body as they had earlier when he’d pulled her away from the men—warm, soothing, gently pressing here and there. Checking for bruises.

She could feel the mess between her legs, sliding down her thighs. It felt oddly good. Dirty. But like she didn’t care. And why should she? When she cared, the ones she was caring about went away.

They didn’t talk about it afterwards. After all, it wasn’t anything. It was just giving in a little bit to that thrill they gave each other. It was scratching an itch.

It didn’t start out as anything.

 

* * *

 

She wasn’t sure when it became something.

Maybe it was when Flynn crept up behind her and put his hands at her hips, his mouth at her ear. “We have some free time.”

‘Free time’ in the bunker was a delicate thing. First of all, nobody could leave unless you were Wyatt and had once again found a way to beat the security system so you could sneak out and see your newly resurrected wife.

So, if you wanted to actually spend some quality time either with yourself or with your partner, it required an in-depth knowledge of exactly where everybody was in the bunker, and the assurance that they would stay in that same spot for the next hour or so.

Doing it when Jiya and Rufus were also doing it was kind of weird but it took care of two people right off the bat. Then it was just a matter of waiting until Denise had gone home, and Mason was wrapped up in monologuing or whatever it was he did when he holed up alone with the Lifeboat, and that Wyatt was asleep.

The guy slept like the dead, honestly. Lucy thought that she could set off an air horn over his head and he wouldn’t notice. If there was a real threat he seemed to have an ability to sense it and be awake instantly but if it was just, say, Rufus trying to sing in the shower—‘try’ being the operative word there—Wyatt managed to sleep right through it just fine.

She let him lead her to the couch and take her apart there, where she had to bite into the pillows to keep from crying out, his body over hers, their clothes still on and his hair falling into his face.

Maybe it was when he started murmuring little things to her in French, knowing that nobody else understood it.

“C’est ma fille,” he would say, his voice just a low rumble, as she stood up to Denise and told her what was what.

“Je te veux,” he would whisper as he walked by, making her flush hot and unable to do anything about it because they were all at breakfast together.

Or when they were all arguing and she might have gotten a little heated with Mason, and Flynn laughed and said teasingly, almost directly in her ear as she settled down, “Un chaton aussi féroce.”

She glared at him but couldn’t call him out for that one without the whole team getting into it. His roguish wink and smug little smile made her struggle between wanting to slap him and kiss him.

Maybe it was when she would try to back him into the nearest surface, her hands tearing at him and her mouth hungry, pressing in, and he’d slow her down. He’d gentle the kisses, wrap his arms around her until they were practically hugging and she had no choice but to go along with it because he was still far bigger and stronger than he was. He’d undress her quietly, piece by piece, sliding his hands all over her like he was going to recreate her later by touch alone.

Maybe it was all of those times, and none of them. Who knew.

But she did know, that this time, she wasn’t going to say anything. Where had words gotten her? When she’d talked to her mother, her mother had kidnapped her. When she’d talked to Wyatt, he’d abandoned her—not that she blamed him for it. It wasn’t her fault or his and it certainly wasn’t Jessica’s.

This time though she wasn’t going to say anything. She’d just keep clinging to him and yanking him into dark corners and biting into his shoulder whatever sob or name or word tried to claw its way out of her throat.

It was like a ritual, or a good luck charm, or maybe even a bit of a spell. No matter how tightly Flynn held her, or the soft light in his eyes when he looked at her, or the desperate, devouring way he kissed her—he’d go away like all the others if she said anything.

But if she said nothing—then he would stay.

 _This isn’t supposed to be anything_ , she would scream silently into his mouth, chest tight, as his hands slid up her back, spanning it, those hands that held guns and bricks and now her. She’d cry it into the meat of her hand when his face was between her thighs and she was trying to keep quiet, shuddering and on edge until she was tugging at his hair, begging him to let her finish. She’d press it back into his lips when he’d try to whisper something, soft words, dangerous words, words that would confirm and destroy everything all at once.

_This isn’t supposed to be anything._

But how could it not be something when he was looking at her and touching her and l—all those things, to her, how could it not be something, how was she supposed to keep her walls up?

She didn’t know how much the others knew. Denise probably suspected because Denise somehow knew everything. Rufus and Jiya were a toss-up. Mason clearly knew jack shit since it had nothing to do with him.

Wyatt…

She didn’t know if he knew. Part of her wanted him to know. Part of her dared him to judge her, to look at her and mentally shake his head in anger and shame, so that she could laugh bitterly and throw it back into his face.

Part of her never wanted him to know. Feared that if he did know, she’d see herself reflected back into his eyes and hate who she saw.

Maybe none of it really mattered.

It didn’t start out as anything, but it became something, and maybe, if she just kept it all to herself this time, if she held it close to her chest and didn’t jinx it—

It would be something she could keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French translations:  
> C’est ma fille – that’s my girl (could also be translated as “that’s my daughter,” ah, context)  
> Je te veux – I want you  
> Un chaton aussi féroce – a ferocious kitten (literally “a kitten with ferocity,” I’m surprised Flynn still has all his fingers after that one)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's like next to no plot to this thing. Felt I should warn you all. Just lots of introspection and feelings.
> 
> And smut.

Flynn hated this bunker.

Well, he hated a lot of things, really. He hated that if he wanted a really good cup of coffee he had to go back to the 1960s. He hated that Rufus didn’t have an off switch and didn’t seem to understand that there was something called a key and most people sang in one.

He hated that he couldn’t save his beautiful family.

He’d been serious when he’d told Lucy he would walk away from them. How could he possibly look either his wife or his daughter in the eye after all that he had done? Lorena would hate what he’d become. Iris would be scared of him.

She’d be almost nine, now. If she’d lived. His little Iris. His sweet baby girl.

Why didn’t Agent Christopher and the others understand—he’d go to jail. He’d go to jail happily. Just so long as he got to save them first. Make all that he had done, all that he had damned himself for, worth it. They were his redemption.

Now he wouldn’t get even that.

Sometimes, if he wasn’t for Lucy, he thought he’d never be here. Not just in the bunker but… at all. What was the point, when the people he’d turned himself into a villain for couldn’t even be saved? They’d been his whole reason, the reason he’d pulled every trigger, gone pinging around through time like a pinball in a machine, and now that he couldn’t save them…

But he did have Lucy.

Or, well, he had something of her. He’d take anything she could give him, anything at all, even if it was just mere scraps.

He wasn’t stupid, after all.

Oh, Rufus had tried to avoid mentioning it and he was pretty sure Mason’s head was so far up his ass he couldn’t even tell when it was daylight anymore, and Agent Christopher sure wasn’t saying anything, but Flynn wasn’t an idiot. He’d made mistakes and done stupid things but an idiot he was not. He knew that something had happened between Lucy and Logan.

God, it tore him apart. He’d catch her watching him, always careful to make sure nobody was watching, least of all Logan.

He’d feel her start in her seat when Logan left or returned, mere locks not enough to keep him from Jessica. Flynn couldn’t exactly blame the guy—if Lorena was alive and Flynn hadn’t turned himself into a monster in the process, he’d be breaking out of the bunker every day too.

Then again, looking at Lucy… maybe he wouldn’t.

Lucy knew that their first meeting hadn’t been the Hindenburg. But she didn’t know what it had been like for Flynn to meet her older self.

This woman, coming to him in his depths of despair. Gently taking the bottle out of his hand. Soothing him. Letting him cry into her shoulder. Pressing the journal into his hands and telling him that this would help him. That he could stop Rittenhouse with this.

She had looked at him with such love, and such tenderness, but also with this aching sadness in her eyes. He didn’t know if it was for her or for himself. And she had spoken with such faith—faith in him, as if he was someone worth believing in—

God was it any wonder he fell in love with her?

But he didn’t know what he’d done along the way to destroy that. The Lucy he looked at now didn’t love him. As much as she let him touch her, fuck her, kiss her, he knew where her heart lay.

And she knew that he knew. There were so many times he’d come so close to saying it, trying to push the words into her skin, her mouth, so that they might somehow become a part of her DNA, so that she might never get rid of his devotion. But each time, she would silence him. She’d bite down almost until she drew blood, crush her lips against his, moan loudly—anything to cut him off from saying how he felt.

Sometimes he wondered if he could get away with something in French. She didn’t cut his hand off for calling her a “ferocious kitten” that one time. If he called her _mon coeur_ or _ma vie_ , would she slap him? Retreat from him?

He wanted to scream his devotion from the rooftops. He hated this damn bunker, how the girls slept sharing rooms and the boys the same so that he couldn’t curl up around her at night. He knew it was stupid but he wanted to wrap himself around her, create a wall between himself and the door so that if anyone came for her in her sleep, they’d have to get through him first. He hated how he couldn’t just come up behind her and hug her in the mornings and had to settle for just being the first one awake and making sure he had coffee ready for her.

It wasn’t that he blamed her for wanting to keep things between them. He did as well. Who knew what kind of fit Logan would pitch. Just because he had his wife back didn’t mean he wasn’t still sort of pining for Lucy—and didn’t that just want to make Flynn grab him and strangle him just the tiniest bit.

How could anyone—how could somebody be stupid enough to let Lucy go? He’d tell her that, if she’d let him, he’d tell her something, anything, she wanted to hear.

But she didn’t want to hear anything, so he didn’t tell her.

Flynn settled himself down on his couch, flicking open the newspaper. It was technically everyone’s couch but he’d made it quite clear that now he lived here, this couch was his.

Sometimes it was Lucy’s, when she let him fuck her on it, but mostly it was his.

He was waiting for Logan to get back.

Not that he was going to confront the guy or anything stupid like that. But if anything happened to Logan on one of his little visits, Lucy would be beyond distraught. And, well, he wasn’t Logan’s biggest fan but if it made Lucy happy then by God Flynn was going to make sure the honorable idiot was safe and sound every night.

He didn’t even need her to love him back. He got it—how was he supposed to hold Lucy’s interest? Perhaps he had been an honorable man, once, before he’d gone gallivanting through history, and that man had been who Lucy had sought out. That man Lucy had loved. And now he’d lost that. He’d killed people in cold blood, kidnapped Lucy no less than three times, shot Wyatt, gotten Rufus shot, gotten them arrested…

No, he didn’t need or expect her to love him back.

He could feel it, in the way that she touched him and let him touch her. The way she held herself back. The way she liked it rough and wouldn’t really speak or let him speak, reducing their communications to gasps and grunts. And he liked it—he really, really liked it and he’d be lying if he said the sex was anything short of amazing—but he wanted more than that. Yet, although she was as pressed up against him as it was possible for two human beings to get, although she let him inside her—she kept him at arm’s length.

If only she would just let him say it. Say _something_. He loved her, fuck, he loved her far more than he’d ever loved himself, and if she’d let him he’d just be happy to follow her around like a stupid puppy dog. Like Logan used to. He was a poor substitute, but he was something, he was better than nothing, wasn’t he?

He couldn’t keep this in his chest forever. He had to let it out at some point, tell her that if only she’d let him he’d follow her for the rest of his life. He didn’t expect devotion back. He just wanted to be allowed to express his… even if he knew he didn’t deserve it.

Sometimes, when he held her, he thought he could literally see the way he was dirtying her up. He’d put his hand on her shoulder or stomach and be certain that when he moved it there’d be black smudges left behind. It felt like he was smearing her with his own sin and blood whenever he touched her, staining her.

One time, he’d had her spread out on the bed and was leaning over her, sliding his fingers in and out of her. Lucy was clutching at him and gasping, making little mewls of pleasure. When he’d looked down, though, he’d seen his fingers stained red.

He’d jumped back, startled, thinking—he didn’t even know what, thinking he’d hurt her, that it was a nightmare come to life—and then Lucy had blushed hard and started laughing, stammering something about it being a day early.

He tried to laugh it off with her but he couldn’t get rid of the sight of his hands stained with blood, the idea of making her bleed. Hurting her.

Sometimes there was a voice in the back of his head that whispered it was only a matter of time until that blood came from a bullet or a knife. That it would only be so long before she died and he failed to stop it or save her—or that worst of all it would be his fault. He’d be the one that killed her.

Flynn felt his chest get tight and was close to getting up and going to splash cold water on his face and maybe hyperventilate a little when he heard the front door opening.

There was the sound of the door latching shut, the door they technically weren’t supposed to be able to open. This was a damn concrete bunker so the floors didn’t creak, but footsteps sure did echo. Logan was about as quiet as a herd of elephants.

Flynn waited until he was creeping towards the kitchen area, probably to warm up some coffee or something, and then spoke. “Didn’t they teach you anything about stealth in the military?”

Logan, to his credit, didn’t jump. He gave a short almost-shake of his head, like he was chastising himself, and then turned around. “Didn’t think anyone would be up yet.”

“I’m an early riser.” Flynn smiled grimly. “Something I learned from Benjamin Franklin.”

Technically he’d learned it from Franklin’s mom but that just didn’t have the same ring to it.

Logan gave him an inscrutable look and went back to the coffee. Flynn watched the man for any signs of injury. He didn’t carry himself stiffly or put too much weight on one leg. His arms were loose, his neck turned fine, no bruises or cuts.

Safe and sound. Good. Flynn felt an odd sense of relief seep into his chest at the thought.

He closed the paper and got up. He could snatch some shut eye. Lucy would forgive him for no coffee just one morning.

He wished like anything he was going to crawl into bed with her. These bunker beds were far from comfortable and not really designed for two people but he’d take any measure of discomfort if he could just fall asleep with her in his arms.

But even if he could, she didn’t want him to.

He thought he saw Logan shoot him an odd look as he walked out, but Flynn ignored him. He’d done his duty, made sure Logan was back safe. It was all that Lucy would let him do but it was better than nothing.

“Hey, Flynn.”

He paused. Turned.

Logan was fully facing him now, and Flynn could see that the other man had dark circles under his eyes. He looked wane.

“Yes?”

Logan cleared his throat, looking startled like he wasn’t the one who’d started this conversation. “If you’d—if you’d saved them. Your wife and kid. And you got to see them again. How’d you do it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean how’d you look ‘em in the eye. Knowing—” Logan swallowed, his throat clicking dryly. “Knowing what you’ve done to get ‘em back.”

That gave Flynn pause. “What did you do.”

Logan looked away. “What did you do?”

It was phrased as a question, but Flynn knew it was an answer. Logan had done something very, very bad.

“I wouldn’t,” Flynn told him, same as he had told Lucy. “Look them in the eye. I wouldn’t go back to them. Lorena would hate what I had done. She would be furious with me. I don’t know if she would even want me anymore—and I could not blame her.”

Logan nodded. “Jess, if she knew… she’d kick me out, man.” He shook his head. “I thought—in the military, y’know, you do what you gotta do and it’s your orders but it’s still murder, y’know? And so I tried—but it’s not the same. War is war but this was my… vendetta.”

Yes. A vendetta.

“Lucy doesn’t know,” Logan added quickly. “Rufus was there but he—he won’t say anything. I know he won’t.”

“Rufus is admirably loyal.”

“But I couldn’t tell Lucy.” Logan coughed, but it sounded like the cough was just there to cover up another noise entirely. “So if you…”

“Your sins are yours,” Flynn said. This, at least, he could understand. “As mine are mine. Only you get to share them.”

Logan nodded.

Perhaps he and Logan were more alike than he’d first suspected. Both losing wives. Both willing to do whatever it took to get them back. Both bound by another woman, orbiting her, trapped by her gravity.

His wife, his daughter, would never accept him now. But Lucy did. She didn’t love him and it hurt, hurt like someone had plunged a branding iron into his chest, but at least she accepted him. She saw him for who he was and didn’t shun it. She looked his sins dead in the eye. Logan seemed to think that Lucy was someone to shelter and protect and she was, but not from the mistakes and flaws of her friends. She could handle those. She was more than capable.

She’d managed to get Flynn wrapped around her little finger, after all, and that had only taken one visit, and from her older self at that.

He didn’t want them dead. They deserved to live. But he could live without them so long as he knew they were safe. Maybe Logan needed to do the same.

Not that he’d be telling Logan that. It was the sort of revelation that a person had to come to on their own.

He still didn’t understand how Logan could ever have given her up.

Flynn tipped his head at him and then headed for the room he shared with the other men. He really did need to get some sleep. There were limits to the amount of sass that even Lucy would tolerate, and he only got worse the less sleep he got.

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe he should stop trying to tell her. Because if it made her uncomfortable… God, the last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable and drive her away. It was only her kindness, really, stopping him from saying what she couldn’t say in return. She was just trying to spare him the hurt, the way she always did, thinking of others. It wasn’t his right to impose his feelings on her if she didn’t want them. He’d take what she could give, what she permitted him. Nothing more.

If only he was going to curl up next to Lucy.

If only she’d give him something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mon coeur: my heart  
> Ma vie: my life
> 
> (Flynn is a sap mmmkay)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention but this entire thing is dedicated to captainofthefallen, who dragged me into this hellhole of Garcia Flynn worship and the trashiest messiest OT3 to ever 3.

Wyatt watched Flynn walk away, his back and shoulders stiff. As if the guy hadn’t already made it abundantly clear that he didn’t like him.

Did they really think he didn’t know? That he hadn’t seen?

Look, he’d been… a screw up. True. He’d waited way too long to tell Lucy how he felt, for one thing. Accidentally killed a man for another. But he wasn’t blind. All those little things that Flynn would murmur to Lucy? The way he only made coffee for her every morning and tried to kill Rufus with his eyes if Rufus so much as touched the coffee maker? The bruises and nail scratches on Flynn’s back and shoulders and chest? The men all shared a room for crying out loud, Rufus had definitely noticed as well if the way his eyebrows shot all the way up into his hairline was anything to go by.

He downed his coffee and set the mug in the sink. Fuck. Seeing Flynn and Lucy and just—just knowing—it made him want to hit something. He wanted to grab Lucy, to shake her, to yell _what do you think you’re doing?_

But then, he’d be a massive hypocrite.

How did he have any possible claim to Lucy when he’d done the same things that Flynn had? It was just one man instead of multiple but murder was murder. You didn’t get to compare and say, oh I only murdered one person and I really didn’t mean to, he murdered ten people, so he’s more of a bad guy than I am.

He’d still ended a life.

Seeing Flynn just now—he’d wanted to talk about it, so badly. It was like there was a hook in his ribs and it was drawing him towards the other man, making him want to just pour it all out, to beg him _how do you stand it? How do you keep getting up in the morning and walking, knowing what you are?_

But the words had stuck in his throat and all he’d managed was to ask him not to tell Lucy.

Part of him hoped, seeing Lucy with Flynn, that she might still accept Wyatt despite what he had done. But he knew better. Flynn had been honest about who he was from the start. Here I am, he’d said. I’m a monster. I dare you to judge me. And Lucy had taken that and said, all right.

Wyatt had tried to be the good guy. Tried to be a hero for her, the hero she needed. How could he shatter that now? How could he come to her and say I know you thought I was good but I’m not, I’m broken?

At least Flynn wasn’t a hypocrite. At least he never lied about who he was.

Delta Force. As if they were movie stars. Delta Force infiltrated and took over Middle Eastern communities. They killed. Wyatt could still taste the blood and sand and gasoline in the back of his throat when he woke up in the middle of the night. He could still smell the heat and the stench of dead bodies. Sometimes he stood in the shower and kept scrubbing, knowing it wasn’t real, but still feeling the grime of the sand on his skin.

Now he was even worse than that—a killer. He’d exchanged an innocent life for his wife’s, brought grief to that man’s parents, his siblings if he had them, his friends. How was that right? How was that fair?

At least Flynn didn’t bother looking at himself in the mirror in the morning. Wyatt was starting to avoid his own reflection as well.

Sometimes he thought… well, that maybe… he could get something, from Flynn. He didn’t know what. It wasn’t like he saw them as two buddies knocking back beers or whatever. But he’d remember all the things Flynn had done, and then he’d see him now, creeping up behind Lucy and pressing a feather-light kiss to the back of her neck when he thought nobody else was in the room.

He just wanted to ask him, _how do you do it?_

But he didn’t know how.

The envy ate at him. Watching him with Lucy, wishing he could touch Lucy like that. Not sure who he wanted to get close to—Lucy and her soft light, or Flynn and his darkness, craving both in a strange, twisted way. Looking for absolution from Flynn and redemption from Lucy. Not knowing how to even begin the conversation with Flynn and knowing that with Lucy it was far too late.

It might be easier if he had something, anything, with Jessica. But he hadn’t known what he was walking into when he’d found her. He hadn’t known at all.

Jessica had text him. He still had her number in his phone and so when his phone had gone off, he’d seen her name. The text was simple: _hey if you’re free can you stop by the bar?_

He’d tracked her phone and hurried over and hauled her into his arms and thought _thank God. Thank you, thank you, God._

Rufus later admitted that he thought it was Hedy that had changed things, kept Jessica alive. Their mission to Hollywood hadn’t changed history as far as Citizen Kane went, that had still premiered on time and all. But Rufus had told Hedy to keep her patent, had turned her into a rich woman to the tune of thirty billion. She’d changed hundreds of lives with her philanthropy and business, Rufus said. Maybe it changed Jessica’s life path just enough. Maybe whoever killed her wasn’t born, or went on to be a better person instead, or just wasn’t at the same place as Jessica anymore.

It made sense.

But after the initial rush had faded, after those first few moments of sheer relief, Wyatt had found himself lost.

What did he do, now? How did he even begin to explain what his life was? And how did he stand with Jess? The last time they’d seen one another they’d had a fight. He’d been an asshole. She’d said—she’d said she was going to stay at the party and she’d walk home, it was just a few blocks, she wanted to stay and spend time with their friends and screw him.

He’d told her fine. Fine. You stay and party, it wasn’t like she ever listened to him anyway, enjoy the walk home in those ridiculously high heels.

He’d never seen her again.

It wasn’t as though she’d even been at a crazy club, either. It had been a birthday party for a friend from her work for Christ’s sake. Tony and Jake, great couple, and Wyatt had actually liked all the people at that party. His PTSD had just been acting up and he—he hadn’t known, how do you say that, how do you tell your wife, listen, I’m sorry, but the clinking glasses are making me want to dive for cover and it feels like something is squeezing my chest and my skin is literally crawling and I can’t fucking _breathe_?

He literally couldn’t find the words. He hadn’t wanted to, back when he’d first come back from tour. Who wants to tell their spouse, the person who waited for them, the person who’s looking at them with shining eyes, hey honey, I’m not quite normal? I’m going to see blood out of the corner of my eye, I’m going to hear children screaming at a park and throw up, I’m going to wake up from nightmares and grab my gun to point at an enemy who isn’t there?

And those were the lucky times when he actually knew what was triggering him and why. A lot of the time he didn’t know why and couldn’t explain it. It was just like his whole body was a prison, too small for him, and he was acutely aware of the ache in every muscle and joint and the way that he was constricted. His own body, and he wanted to claw his skin off, peel away the layers and dig into the muscle until he could escape it because everything was just too small too small too small and he couldn’t explain _why_.

How could he even begin to tell her?

In hindsight, he knew that he should have told her. Should have said something, anything, even if it was something ridiculous like, “Hey I’m just not feeling well, is it okay if we go home?”

And that had been the other thing—the panicking, it hadn’t let him let Jess out of his sight. He’d insisted that she come home with him too, to be safe. That was what had led to the argument. Jess, not understanding, him not allowing her to understand. The two of them whisper-arguing in the downstairs guest bathroom, hoping nobody overheard them or tried to use the room.

For all the demons he hadn’t told her about then, though, now there were more. He’d murdered an innocent man. He’d traveled through time—and that was, just, wow. Was he even allowed to explain that to her? But what if she was in danger?

Turned out, things between him and Jess in this timeline were… strained. They weren’t separated, but he’d still been recruited to work with Mason on the project with Lucy and Rufus, and Jessica had struggled to accept his sudden absences.

“Explain it to me,” he’d told her. “I know you probably already have but I need to hear it again. I want to be sure I understand you.”

She’d seemed surprised at that but she’d told him. “At least when you were in the military—it was awful, having you so far away. And I know there are things you couldn’t tell me about. But you told me where you were, generally. We could Skype. I knew how long your tour of duty was. You had a liaison I could call if I wanted updates and couldn’t reach you.

“Now… I don’t know anything. I don’t know if you’ll be home for dinner or if you’ll just be gone all day again. I can’t RSVP you on any invites because, well, I don’t know if you’ll be called in at the last minute and I have to tell people hey, sorry, I know I said he would come but…” Jessica’s soft eyes had gotten even softer, a telltale sign that she was trying not to cry. “It feels like I’ve barely seen you at all this past year. Like you’ve become a ghost.

“And then you just up and disappear without a word? Nothing but text messages and clandestine meetings? You tell me to act like everything’s fine and you give me code phrases and I just, I don’t know that you’re mixed up in, Wyatt, and it scares me.”

Then the worst words of all.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

Wyatt changed his mind about the coffee and started up the maker again, washing his mug and setting it aside to refill it.

With these thoughts swirling around his head, he doubted he was getting any sleep anyway.

He looked again at the doorway where Flynn had disappeared. The guy was in the same room as the other men. What would he say, if Wyatt asked him, tried to talk to him? Would he just laugh at him, find it all amusing? Would he be bitter and say that at least Wyatt’s wife was alive?

And since when had he even cared what Flynn thought of him?

Wyatt braced his hands on the counter. Fuck. Things with Jess hadn’t been getting better since that first talk. He’d been sneaking out every chance that he could get, although he suspected that Christopher was just letting him do it at this point. He took Jess out dancing, out to bars, to the movies. They were having sex now and then, but it lacked the heat and passion he remembered, the need to just tear each other’s clothes off and bury themselves in each other. It wasn’t like his one time with Lucy, either, slow and all-consuming, like he was drowning in her.

God, Lucy. No wonder she was with Flynn, after Wyatt had screwed her over.

How could he blame her for seeking comfort where she could? He’d all but abandoned her. Even Jiya had gently suggested to him that Rufus was feeling Wyatt was a little distracted lately.

And Flynn was… well, attentive was probably an understatement. He hovered, for lack of a better term. Wherever Lucy was, Flynn wasn’t far off. The rare times Wyatt saw one without the other, it was usually because Lucy was in the shower or asleep. If Lucy needed a coat or five dollars or a cup or literally anything, Flynn had it for her, stretched out, like he’d read her mind.

It was kind of—Wyatt wasn’t sure. It made his stomach twist when he saw it. Partially because he wanted to be the one taking care of Lucy like that. He wanted to be on the receiving end of her soft wondering smiles again. Not that he could blame her for taking them away.

But he also kind of wanted… what? Not—he didn’t—Flynn wasn’t going to take care of him, and he didn’t want him to, it was just… it would be nice. To be that wholly in someone’s mind that they put such effort into caring for you. That they were so ready to protect you, that they couldn’t leave your side.

It just looked nice, that was all.

The coffee maker beeped that it was ready and Wyatt nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked around furtively, checking to make sure nobody had seen their unflappable soldier boy have a heart attack over a damn kitchen appliance.

God, whether he was against them or working with them, Flynn knew how to get in someone’s head and mess them up.

Not that. Flynn wasn’t messing him up. Or in his head.

Or anything.

Wyatt poured himself a cup of coffee and refused to let himself put sugar in it, drinking it black, savoring the bitterness of it.

What kind of jackass was he that he was in love with one woman and married to another? It felt like he was somehow cheating on both of them. He was sleeping with Jess… but his thoughts were with Lucy.

 He kind of wanted to bang his head against the counter.

Maybe the truth was… he and Jess were just different people now. He didn’t know what had happened to her the last few years. And she didn’t know him, because he’d spent the last few years without her, even if she didn’t know it. Maybe who they were now was incompatible with who they were then.

They’d once fit like a hand and glove. He’d worshipped her, almost, known that there was no person in the world as good as his Jess. He’d been so proud that she’d chosen him, thinking that maybe if someone like her loved someone like him, he had a chance at being a good person. It had felt like losing a limb when she’d died.

Yet, somewhere along the way, he’d grown used to living without that limb. And somehow, without knowing it, he’d apparently forgotten what to do if that limb was given back to him.

Fuck. Wyatt scrubbed a hand over his eyes. What had he said to Lucy about her fiancé? What was his name… Eric?

He’d told her she had to let him go and find the person that he was supposed to be with, because the version of Lucy that he’d loved didn’t exist anymore.

Maybe it was time to do that to Jess.

God, he didn’t want to. He still looked at her and felt safe, felt normal, felt nostalgic. But tonight, when they’d talked, he’d told her how much he loved her and she just sighed. And she’d said… she’d said, “I love you too,” but there was this exhaustion to it. Like she was saying it out of rote.

And his life was never going to be normal anymore, was it? He wasn’t normal. He could feel himself slipping down a steep, cold slope and he didn’t want to carry Jess down it with him.

Wasn’t it a kindness, really, to let her go?

Who knew how far he’d slip. Who knew what Rittenhouse would do to her. Who knew if something in the timeline would change again and she’d vanish, dead once more.

There was another reason to break things off with Jess. He was still stupidly, desperately in love with Lucy. He could feel himself getting happier when she entered a room, like he was a damn dog waiting for his master.

How could he be with Jess while he was thinking constantly about another woman, longing for another woman? It wasn’t fair to Jess, not at all. At first he’d been all wrapped up in her and Lucy had been completely shoved out of his head but then she had crept back in and made herself a permanent resident.

No, there were so many reasons why this wasn’t fair to Jess. He wouldn’t tie her to someone she seemed to love out of habit, and he certainly wouldn’t tie her to someone who could get her killed, who couldn’t love her with all that he was. He had to break it off.

That still didn’t fix things with Lucy.

Well, too late for that anyway. Wyatt could hear his own tone of voice in his head and knew he sounded bitter but fuck if he wasn’t allowed to sound however he damn well wanted in his own head. Lucy had Flynn now. And the bastard might be a lot of things, but he was also a good shot, knew how to fight, was obviously intelligent, and most of all—loyal to those he loved.

Wyatt didn’t know of a better person Lucy could’ve chosen to have by her side to keep her safe.

He downed the rest of his coffee just as he heard quiet shuffling. He turned around.

Lucy.

She was wearing a bathrobe, and it was pretty clear that she’d thought he was someone else by the way it was falling open a bit, showing the dark bite mark low down on her collarbone.

Ah, right. Flynn usually made coffee for Lucy in the mornings.

“It’s all yours,” Wyatt told her.

Lucy looked like she was going to say something but he just moved past her. There were still too many things he wanted to say, to yell, to beg, and his skin was starting to feel too small.

He thought she might have watched him leave, but he didn’t look back.


	4. Chapter 4

She didn’t mean to overhear him.

This bunker was so damn small sometimes. There were extra rooms, empty ones, but they were closed up because nobody ever used them. That left the living room-slash-kitchen-slash-warehouse for the Lifeboat, the women’s bedroom, the men’s bedroom, the shared bathroom, and the medical room in case one of them got shot again.

They were all really hoping that last room wasn’t needed.

It had been hard, the last few days. Days that felt like months. When they traveled in time they’d spend however long they needed in the past, but they’d return to the present only a couple hours after they left. Rufus hoped someday to get it down to minutes but piloting the Lifeboat was sketchy enough already. It meant that while in the present, they’d only spent a few hours, Lucy had actually lived days, sometimes weeks.

It made her bones ache.

She’d just wanted a moment alone, away from everyone. Even Flynn. She had thought she would find his presence claustrophobic, that she would itch to escape, but instead she found it comforting. He was always just in the corner of her vision, a steady presence when everything else was off-kilter.

She’d be lying if she didn’t miss Wyatt’s presence. Flynn was sharp edges and brooding, a protector that hovered over her and one she knew she could turn to at any moment. But Wyatt was softer, that gentle warmth at her side. Flynn filled something up inside of her, something dark and angry and hungry, but it wasn’t enough to warm her up completely. She still felt somewhat cold inside.

Somewhat dead.

It was the time travel. Had to be. That was why she needed a moment alone so badly. It was getting to the point where she was scared to leave anyone for even a moment, terrified that they’d disappear from existence while her back was turned. She even found herself reaching for Jiya in the middle of the night, checking her pulse, just in case.

She needed to be alone. She needed to remind herself that being alone wasn’t the end of the world and that her friends wouldn’t disappear on her.

Friends. She almost laughed out loud at the word. It felt so bitter on her tongue. These weren’t her friends. They were family. They were all she had left.

It made her want to squeeze them sometimes, hug them all until there was no air left in them. Hell, even Mason. She just couldn’t stand the alternative.

But it was like her silence with Flynn. If she stayed silent, then he would stay. If she went out for ten minutes, stayed alone, breathed in air that belonged only to her, and when she came back everyone was still there…

Maybe they would all still be there when she returned from a trip.

She was a lot more careful about slipping out of the bunker than Wyatt was. He did it with a kind of recklessness, like he was daring Denise to slap him in iron for it. It was how Wyatt did everything—how Flynn did everything as well. The two of them, one matter-of-factly and one with fireworks, both straining and snapping against any chains that tried to hold them.

Besides, unlike Wyatt who’d apparently once tried to go at the door with a buzz saw, Lucy had just learned how to pick the lock.

Long story short, making friends with Victorian prostitutes came in handy. They taught you all kinds of tricks.

She closed the door carefully behind her. There was going to be an alert in the logs that the door had been opened but she’d suppressed the door opening alarm at least.

The bunker was sunken in, so she had to get up the steps to the small, abandoned building that hid it. Moss and vines covered the building, making it look like something from an apocalyptic film, a time when man was long gone.

She got halfway up the steps when she heard it.

Voices. A voice.

Wyatt?

She pressed herself into the shadows and waited. Perhaps he wasn’t alone. Perhaps there were Rittenhouse agents up there, trying to get him to show them the entrance, perhaps…

But Wyatt’s voice continued on, pausing, then starting up again, with no interruption from anyone else that she could hear.

“No, no, it’s not—you’re right, of course you’re right…”

Lucy dared to push her head up and look.

Wyatt was standing to the side, his shoulders hunched, a cell phone clutched in his hand like he wanted to throw it at something.

“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t do this in person,” he was saying. His voice sounded raw and thick. “Oh, wow, yeah, thanks for that.

“No, I probably deserved it. Yeah… and hey, for the record, that was on you too.” A huffed, strained laugh. “Yeah I remember that. They were good times…

“That’s the thing. I—of course I want that, still, but I don’t think we can…

“Yeah, care packages and phone calls only do so much. I get that. And I should’ve seen that.

“What I just want to understand is… I thought, that this was all new. I’ve changed, recently, I know that, this new job, but now I’m hearing that you’ve been feeling this way for years? You can’t expect me to not be a little angry at that, Jess! I’d have thought if you were feeling that distant you would’ve told me!”

Lucy flinched, as though someone had slapped her. He was talking to Jessica. Arguing with her, actually.

She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be listening. She needed to turn around and go back into the bunker…

But curiosity, awful morbid curiosity, froze her in place.

Wyatt huffed in frustration. His knuckles were white where they gripped the phone, and even at her odd angle peering up at him she could see that his hands were shaking. “I know I messed up. I’m not saying that I didn’t. I’m just saying I wish you’d told me about this sooner.

“What, and get on a waitlist for months before a shrink tells me things I already know? Yeah…” Wyatt gave a harsh, dry laugh. “Trust me, I’m aware.”

He stopped talking for a while, just listening. Lucy could pick up the cadence of Jessica’s voice even if she couldn’t identify the words. It sounded like Jessica was crying.

Wyatt’s eyes got wet and he quickly rubbed at them. He cleared his throat a few times, not like he wanted to speak but like he was trying to keep himself together. He hummed a few times to let Jess know he was still listening.

Lucy kept watching. If Wyatt looked down and to the side, he’d see her. She didn’t know what he’d do about that. Would he hate her?

Once, just a month ago, she’d looked at this man and thought there wasn’t an expression on his face that she couldn’t read. What she didn’t know about him yet was a joyful opportunity for discovery. Now she couldn’t read him at all, and the idea of there being things about him she didn’t know made her chest ache.

Wyatt nodded along to whatever Jessica was saying. When the tinny sound of talking from the phone fell silent, he took a moment. Then he spoke.

“I guess this was just a long time coming. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you cling to something that wasn’t working anymore. We were good for a while though, weren’t we? At the beginning? We were real good together.”

Then he said something else, and Lucy thought her heart was going to crack itself open.

“Jess, a part of me is always going to love you.”

Wyatt took a deep breath. “But you should find the person you’re meant to be with. And I guess that person isn’t me. I want you to be happy.”

Lucy couldn’t hear anymore. It was clear to her—that Wyatt was letting Jess go for her sake, not for his. Part of her wanted to run up and scream into the phone _how could you do this to him, can’t you see he adores you, did you know what he’s done to save you_.

The rest of her felt too sick.

She slipped back into the bunker and closed the door behind her, resting her head on the always-cold concrete and metal.

She’d been nothing more than a substitute, really. A replacement. Wyatt had only wanted her, needed her, so long as Jess wasn’t in the picture.

Now he was giving Jess up for her sake, and was going to set himself up for a broken heart all over again.

Maybe he’d try coming to Lucy—but she didn’t want to be a replacement.

She angrily thumped the wall. For a moment she was tempted to punch it, hammer at it until her skin split over her knuckles and her hands were bruised and bloody.

She wanted Wyatt to come to her because he loved her. She wanted him to choose her.

A sudden, wild choking feeling surged up in her throat and she wiped frantically at her eyes, only noticing then that she was crying.

Flynn. With the force of a fire she wanted him, needed to be held and kissed by him. Flynn had chosen her. If she just—if she was careful, she’d get to keep him the way she hadn’t gotten to keep Wyatt.

She found him in the men’s bedroom, deserted at this time of day while Rufus and Mason were working on the Lifeboat i.e. arguing over the Lifeboat. Flynn was sitting on the side of his bed, examining his hands. He did a lot of that, when he was alone, she’d noticed. Staring at his hands.

He looked up as she entered. His eyebrows climbed up into his forehead as she closed and locked the door behind her.

“Everything all right?” he asked, standing.

Lucy strode over and yanked at him, crashing her lips into his.

She would keep this one. She would, she _would_ , she’d consume him until there was nothing left of him that didn’t belong to her. She should have done that with Wyatt when she’d had the chance.

A sound wrenched itself out of her chest, not quite a sob, and Flynn pulled back. “Lucy.” He took her face in his hands. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it. After all, how can you tell a man that you’re in love with him and terrified of losing him… and also in love with another man and angry at losing him, too?

How could that be anything to Flynn except insulting?

She didn’t understand how she could feel this burning, itching anger for Wyatt, this aching loss and desire for him, and also feel this terrifying, huge desire and fear of loss for Flynn as well. She wanted to tug on the threads of her feelings, separate them neatly into boxes, explain them, but they were all knotted up and she didn’t even know where to begin.

Lucy shoved at Flynn until he had no choice but to sink down on the bed. He kept trying to talk, to ask what was wrong, but she wouldn’t let him. She kept kissing him, sliding her tongue into his mouth, grabbing his hands and putting them on her body, squeezing, she didn’t want words, she didn’t have words, just give her this.

He finally seemed to get the message and stopped trying to talk. His hands slid up underneath her shirt, running over her skin before yanking the shirt off completely.

She wanted his hands on her. She didn’t want to be touched at all.

She didn’t know anymore.

Flynn watched her, pupils blown wide, making his eyes black and hungry, as she undid her pants and shimmied them off. After being in so many periods of history where she wasn’t allowed pants, she’d taken to wearing them all the time in the present.

 _Stay like that_ , she thought. _Stay just like that, wanting me, desperate for me. Stay like that forever._

She was going to keep this one. Anger and grief and desperation and love were all snarling at each other inside of her like starving wolves and she didn’t quite know which end was up anymore, Wyatt Flynn Wyatt Flynn Wyatt Flynn a never-ending circuit in her head, but she did know this. She wasn’t going to lose Flynn. Not like she’d lost Wyatt. She was keeping this one.

Flynn helped her in getting his shirt and pants off, but when he tried to take control she shoved his hands down. Flynn was the kind of person who liked being in control, who almost needed it, and most of the time she was happy to let him. Flynn being in control generally led to fantastic orgasms had by all so, why complain?

But she needed control this time. She needed to claim him.

Flynn seemed to get the message, because he stretched his hands up behind his head, a gesture of surrender. Lucy felt a thrill as she quickly slid two fingers inside of herself, getting herself ready for him. Flynn wasn’t the kind of man who gave up control to anyone easily, much less openly surrendered.

She slid her fingers out of herself. It was far sooner than Flynn would have stopped, but she kind of wanted to hurt right now. No timeline would be able to take the burn of her muscles and the lingering soreness away from her.

What if there was a time where they came back, and Flynn now also had a wife back from the grave?

Lucy clenched her teeth, taking Flynn in hand and stroking him, rough and tight until Flynn was groaning, mouth open, gaze pinned to her hand and her movements. _No_ , she wanted to scream. That will never happen, that cannot happen, I can’t let you be taken from me too.

She scooted up so that she straddled his hips and began to sink onto him. Flynn groaned, and she could see his body shaking with the effort to keep still, to let her lead. She clenched around him a little cruelly, knowing he was already working so hard to hold himself back.

 _Mine_ , she thought. _Mine, mine, mine._

She moved fast, a little too fast, her thighs screaming in protest. She had to brace herself on his chest. Flynn’s hands came up to grip her hips and she let him, knowing there’d be ten beautiful finger-shaped bruises on her skin in a few hours.

She was going to keep this one, she thought. She would, she would find a way. If she couldn’t have both then she’d at least get one. She couldn’t stand to lose another person.

Flynn reached up, his expression awed and heart wrenching, and he thumbed at her cheek. Tears. She was crying again.

He sat up, making her cry out as the angle changed, and wrapped her up in his arms. She clung to him, crying harder now that she’d acknowledged it but refusing to stop the movements of her hips. She pressed her lips together so that everything she was feeling wouldn’t come spilling out of her. She clenched around him again, needing him to come more than she needed it herself.

Flynn swore and held her tighter, painfully tight, jerking upwards and spilling inside of her. Lucy bit him, hard, not even caring when she tasted the iron-salt tang of blood. _Mine._

She couldn’t say how long he held her in his lap like that. Long enough that she started to come down from her high and began to shiver. It really was ridiculously cold in this bunker.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Flynn asked.

Lucy buried her face into his chest and clung tighter. Don’t say anything. If you say anything, you’ll lose him. Just keep quiet. Don’t jinx it.

Flynn sighed. His hands rubbed soothingly up and down her back.

She cried—for what she’d lost, for what she yet might lose.

 _Mine_ , she thought viciously. _This one will stay mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologize but this is making captainofthefallen have feelings and yell at me so no I don't apologize I regret nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

Lucy didn’t tell him what the hell all that was about, but Flynn was pretty sure that he could guess.

Logan had disappeared again, phone in hand, probably to call Jessica. Not an hour later Lucy showed up in the men’s room, locked them in, and proceeded to fuck Flynn’s brains out… while crying.

It didn’t exactly take a genius.

Thank fuck that Agent Christopher had finally given in and installed a punching bag in this damn bunker. Now he could beat it up to his heart’s content when he was upset.

Like now.

He swung hard, feeling the sting of pain in his knuckles. He’d been at this for a good hour or so, ever since Lucy had quieted and he’d been able to get her over to her bed. She’d passed out, understandably so. She’d ridden him like she was going to die if she slowed down, clenching around him and barely giving her body time to get used to him. Normally Flynn would have passed out too, but there was too much frustration working through his veins, burning him like fire.

He’d cleaned Lucy up a bit, gotten her clothes back on, and tucked her into bed. Luckily Jiya hadn’t been there.

When he’d laid her down and pulled away, Lucy had made this tiny noise in the back of her throat, almost a mewl. She’d clumsily, sleepily reached for him, her fingers weakly clutching at his wrist.

His heart had leapt into his throat and he’d thought that she wanted him to stay.

But her eyes had been closed. She was asleep, and probably thinking he was someone else.

Flynn swung again, feeling pain radiate up his arm as his knuckles really did split open this time. He grunted, reveling in the harsh sting of it. He swung again, this time with his other arm, hoping he’d split those knuckles too.

Maybe he should have even broken off this… thing, this whatever it was, with her. But he was selfish and couldn’t possibly give it up, give her up, of his own accord. He’d stay by her side as long as she let him.

Maybe he should have been upset at Lucy. But he knew that he only had himself to blame.

How could she possibly love him with all that he had done? How could she love him when she had Logan there?

Someone grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around. Flynn threw a punch instinctively and there was a “fuck” and the person ducked, coming back up again.

He paused, breathing hard. It was Logan.

“Jesus fuck, see if I ever check up on you again,” Logan growled. “What the hell, man, you’ve been hammering on that thing for an hour.”

“None of your business.”

“When you start scaring everybody and hit the damn bag so hard you’re bleeding, then yeah, I think it starts to become my business.”

Logan grabbed Flynn’s hands, examining the wounds. He made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “Really? Brooding around the bunker isn’t enough for you, Heathcliff?”

“Frankly I resent the comparison,” Flynn responded.

His eyes roamed Logan’s face as the other man studied Flynn’s hands. It was easy to see why Lucy loved him. He was attractive, for one. In that corn-fed-all-American-scruffy-farm-boy kind of way.

Logan huffed. “What, not a Bronte fan?”

“More of a Jane Austen person myself.”

Logan rolled his eyes, and Flynn was probably imagining the trace of fondness in his voice when he said, “Of course you are.”

He turned and walked away, glancing back over his shoulder when Flynn didn’t follow. “C’mon, McBroody, we’re patching you up.”

Flynn followed, more out of surprise than anything else. Logan caring enough to even notice his injury, never mind patch him up, was something Flynn wouldn’t have bet on. In fact, he’d have put money down on the opposite happening.

Logan all but shoved Flynn into a chair at the kitchen table and went to grab the first aid kit. “You’re an idiot, you know that, right? How are you supposed to hold a gun if your hands are all swollen?”

Irrational anger rose up in Flynn and he snapped, “We all have our distractions, don’t we Logan?”

Logan almost dropped the first aid kit and glared at him. “Real nice way to talk to the guy bandaging you up.”

“I didn’t ask for you to nanny me.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t get a choice.” Logan sat down across from him and yanked one of Flynn’s hands towards him. “You’re a part of this team, that means you have to think about more than just yourself now. Like how injuring yourself will affect your ability to protect the others.”

 _You mean protect Lucy._ Flynn knew what Logan really meant. “It won’t affect that.” Nothing would keep him from protecting her. He’d give his life if it meant keeping her safe.

Logan snorted in disbelief. Flynn yanked his hand away. “What, do you doubt me?”

Logan looked up, startled, his blue eyes going wide. Flynn honestly didn’t have much opportunity to look Logan straight in the eye. Usually they just glanced at each other, their gazes dancing around each other as much as their barbed words and fists did.

He couldn’t help but notice how soft Logan looked, when gazed at full in the face.

“No.” Logan swallowed, then shook his head. “No, I know that… you’ll do whatever it takes.”

Mollified, Flynn let Logan take his hand again and begin treating it. He hissed at the sting, and Logan chuckled. “Don’t be a baby.”

“I’m sorry, who was whining about a septic infection when they got shot?” Flynn asked.

Logan looked up, glaring. Flynn smiled, feeling smug. “Rufus told me about that.”

“Rufus is a dirty liar,” Logan replied, looking back down at Flynn’s hands. “And it’s a legitimate concern,” he added in a mumble.

Flynn chuckled. He wouldn’t have taken Logan for the kind of guy who got freaked out over things. He always seemed steady. Like a rock. It had to be why Lucy had fallen for him, when Flynn himself was always shooting off like a bottle rocket, unpredictable and ruled by his emotions.

What. He knew what his flaws were.

Logan had seemed like the calmest of men, solid, dependable. Flynn had come to rely on Logan himself these past few months—first to exploit his dependability, and then to lean on it in times of danger.

Yet now, thanks to Rufus and just spending enough time around Logan, Flynn could see the little chinks in the armor. How Logan almost always forgot to put a chair in front of the bathroom door and yet jumped a mile when someone walked in on him. How he was reduced to one-word sentences before his morning coffee. How he so easily looked tired, or hurt, or angry, his emotions playing across his face unchecked, easy to read—easy for an enemy to take advantage of, a thought that surprised Flynn with how much it scared him.

Anybody could take one look at Logan and see what mattered to him, see what his weaknesses were. Flynn had done it, once. He hated the thought of anyone else trying to do it.

Logan worked patiently on his hands, silent, steady. He’d obviously patched up worse in his time in the military.

This was what Lucy needed. Someone gentle, someone dependable, someone who could be soft in ways that Flynn couldn’t. Of course she was in love with Logan. Of course Flynn was nothing more than second rate.

He had to say something or he was going to do something stupid like cry. The frustration and tension he’d been working out through punching was still inside of him but now with no outlet.

“Fixed up a few bloody knuckles before, huh?” Flynn asked. “I never took you for the kind of guy who got into petty fights.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Logan replied, and it was probably supposed to come out irritated, and maybe it did, but then he looked up at Flynn with his head still angled down, up through his lashes, just a quick flickering look before going back to his work and—

It wasn’t that Flynn was unaware of how attractive men could be. He had been happily and monogamously married for five years, and hadn’t been with anyone again until Lucy, but he wasn’t dead, and he’d done his time with both men and women growing up. It had bothered him at first, especially knowing he had to be careful who he talked to about it, who knew, who didn’t, how to lie in just the right way, how to say things so that the right person might understand but the wrong person wouldn’t. Over time, though, especially with all the time travel he’d been doing… he’d learned there were worse things to be ashamed of. Finding someone beautiful wasn’t one of them.

So it wasn’t looking at a man and feeling a zap of want through his spine that had his brain screeching to a halt. It was that the want was directed at _Wyatt Logan_.

And sure, maybe he’d felt a little spark of something when Logan was tied up, legs spread, gazing up at him all defiance and honor, but he’d ignored that easily enough. This… this was stronger than that. It wasn’t just a little spark. It would not be ignored.

He must have stiffened up, because Logan frowned down at his hands. “Could you stop wiggling for just two seconds?”

“Maybe I’d stay still if you were a better doctor,” Flynn shot back.

Logan just huffed and rolled his eyes, finishing one hand and taking the other. His hands were warm, steady, fingers drifting over his skin, and this really, really was not helping make Flynn’s headspace any less muddled and angry.

What confused him most was that he’d always been a one-and-done kind of person. The moment he set eyes on one person, he didn’t see anyone else. Being desperately, stupidly in love with Lucy, but now feeling this jolt of desire for Logan—that was new.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed before that Logan was good looking. For one thing, Flynn could appreciate a nice ass in a good pair of pants and Logan had both. But it was just an idle acknowledgment, nothing more.

Now it was something more.

It was probably just because he was thinking about Lucy. He’d been dwelling on how she was using him as a substitute for a better man, and that better man had sat in front of him and accidentally made bedroom eyes.

Perfectly understandable.

After another moment, Logan said, “My dad.”

Flynn didn’t quite follow. “What?”

Logan cleared his throat. “Uh, my dad. That’s how I got used to…” He took one hand off of Flynn’s and waved it vaguely through the air. He did that, Flynn had noticed, made random gestures when he was looking for a word and couldn’t figure out what to say next. “This.”

“Ah.” Flynn nodded. He felt like he was supposed to say something back. “Nothing like having a crap father.”

Logan huffed, one of the corners of his mouth turning up briefly, bitterly. “Yeah.”

Logan turned both of Flynn’s hands over, making sure he hadn’t missed any spots. Watching Logan concentrate was almost soothing, the way his brow furrowed between his eyebrows and the way his lips pursed a little, his movements calm and practiced.

“There.” Logan pushed Flynn’s hands back towards him and began packing up the first aid kit. “And be more careful next time.”

“I should be telling you the same thing. Sneaking out at all hours? It’s only time until Rittenhouse catches you.”

“They won’t,” Logan replied, putting the first aid kit away.

Flynn laughed harshly. “Don’t underestimate them, Logan. They will—”

“No, I meant…” Logan turned around. Something in his eyes was open, raw, and Flynn had the stupid urge to wrap his arms around him. “I meant that they won’t get the opportunity.”

Ahhh. So that was what the phone call had been about.

Flynn stood as well. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be.” Logan shrugged, looked away. “Apparently it was a long time coming. I just didn’t… want to see it. I mean, you know, we were just kids when we got together. It wasn’t… we’re different people now.”

Flynn didn’t know what to say. He wanted to find something to help Logan, but he didn’t know what, and he also wanted to run to where Lucy was and curl around her and growl if Logan so much as stepped in her direction. He couldn’t lose her—and now he would. Logan was free. Of course he’d go to Lucy and she’d go to him and Flynn would be without, watching from afar.

“I suppose you’ll want to take care of some things, then,” Flynn said.

Logan looked confused, his brow furrowing again. “Yeah. Sure.”

He’d have to let Lucy go to Logan. She deserved it. Maybe he’d even find a way to be okay with it. Lucy deserved the best, after all, and Garcia Flynn was far from the best.

“Just be careful, okay?” Logan added. He sounded even more confused, like he wasn’t even sure why he was saying it.

Flynn nodded. Logan turned, mumbling something, and left the room.

Now there was nothing to do but wait for Lucy to break things off with him.

At least he’d had something, something he could remember and cling to. At least he’d got to have her at all. It was more than he deserved, at any rate.

He’d have to content himself with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned there was self-loathing in this, right?


	6. Chapter 6

It was, in retrospect, only a matter of time until somebody walked in on somebody else.

Wyatt honestly didn’t know how Jiya and Rufus hadn’t had an embarrassing moment yet. Those two were like ninjas.

Denise was out, Mason was brooding inside the Lifeboat, and Jiya and Rufus were having a Mario Kart battle, so Wyatt had thought, hey, why not take a shower and think about how much you’ve screwed up in life?

Seemed reasonable at the time.

Except that when he walked into the bathroom—which had no chair in front of it, for the record—he was met almost immediately with a wanton moan.

He stopped dead in his tracks. He knew that sound. About a month or two ago he’d been the one making Lucy make that sound.

His eyes were drawn towards them, like a magnet, unable to look away, soaking it in before he could even get the wherewithal to tell his brain _wrong bad stop_.

They were back to chest, Lucy bent over a little, her forearms braced on the slick tile. Flynn was plastered over her back, almost bent in half because of the height difference, one arm around her waist as he slid in and out of her from behind.

There was something very… vicious, about the way that they were touching each other. Not that they were being angry or hateful, but there was a desperation to their movements, like they each thought that the other one would slip away if they gripped one another with anything less than bruising force.

Lucy moaned again, and Flynn brought a hand up to cover her mouth. Wyatt could see her bite his palm, saw her reach back and rake her nails over any part of him that she could reach, which kind of surprised Wyatt. She’d been nothing but sweet when he’d slept with her, all pliant twining limbs and deep thoughtful kisses. This was a wild side to Lucy that he hadn’t even guessed might be there.

To say it was hot as fuck was an understatement.

Wyatt knew he needed to leave, he needed to leave right the fuck now. He should’ve left thirty seconds ago, actually, should’ve left the second he knew what was happening. But he just couldn’t look away.

And not just from Lucy, either.

Wyatt kept staring at Flynn’s hands on Lucy’s hips, covering her mouth, the way he could just hoist her up around the waist if he wanted. He knew, sure, Flynn was a strong guy. Hell he’d seen Flynn all but turn that punching bag into stuffing earlier and he’d been on the receiving end of the guy’s punches quite a few times. But it was one thing to get that in the context of a fight, and entirely another to see it used like this.

Flynn was just—manhandling her, almost, although Lucy was giving as good as she got and marking Flynn up a hell of a lot more than he was marking her. Wyatt thought that he could hear her moan out directions too—harder, faster, more—and God damn if Flynn wasn’t giving it to her. Wyatt felt kind of trapped staring at the movements of Flynn’s hips, the power in those corded muscles, wondering what it would be like to…

Shit fuck god fucking—Wyatt nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to quickly and quietly get out of there.

How he managed to get out of the damn bathroom and close the door behind him without them noticing, he had no fucking clue. But at least he didn’t have to have an awkward conversation with them.

Those images stayed in his head, though, long after everyone had settled in for dinner and a strategy meeting. He couldn’t really meet Lucy’s eyes, or Flynn’s. Although, actually, that last part wasn’t new. He was always avoiding Flynn’s gaze. It was intense, dark, and when he looked into those dark green-brown fathomless eyes he felt a little like he was being carefully peeled open and laid bare.

Now he couldn’t look at either of them out of sheer embarrassment.

He knew he wouldn’t get Lucy back when he broke up with Jess. That was for Jess’s sake and his, cutting himself off of something that no longer worked for either of them, setting them both free. It wasn’t like Lucy was going to dump Flynn and come running back into Wyatt’s arms, especially with how he’d abandoned her.

Flynn took better care of her anyway.

He’d resigned himself, was the point, and hadn’t expected his desire for Lucy to smack him hard in the face like this. God, it was like his senses were heightened and he could smell her, sense her, feel her warmth all over again.

At least that desire wasn’t new. This thing about Flynn?

…what the fuck?

Okay, yes, objectively speaking the guy was handsome. In that dangerous, mothers-warning-their-daughters sort of way. He was even more handsome so long as he kept his damn mouth shut. But Wyatt wasn’t…

Look, there was no reason for him to look at Flynn gripping Lucy tightly, possessively, and to imagine Flynn grabbing _him_ like that.

Wyatt stood up abruptly from the table. “I’m getting more coffee,” he said when everyone stared.

Fuck, his hands were shaking as he tried to refill his cup. He had to get a grip on himself. He was just pent up, frustrated, that was all. That had to be all. This… something, it was just a random something, born out of close proximity and he and Flynn both wanting the same woman and the thing with Jess. It was just all messing with his head.

It wasn’t anything more than that.

No, it _couldn’t_ be anything more than that, get your fucking head on straight, Logan. He could hear his dad’s voice in his head, the way he’d seen the other kids at school treat Jake Byers, the one kid who’d been caught kissing whatshisname, the guy from the prissy upper class school across town. Nobody in Wyatt’s school could get to that spoiled kid, never went anywhere near any of the kids from that other school, an unspoken rule passed down by their parents. But they could get to Jake Byers, all right, and they had.

The army…

Was the army.

Wyatt grit his teeth, forcing his hands to steady, the way they’d steadied around grenades, around guns, around the ground shaking from the movement of goddamn tanks. There. You’re your objective. Know your objective. Break it down into steps. Let nothing else into your head.

He’d learned that well, out in the desert. If you thought of anything else, thought beyond your current action, you started to think about what you were doing and that was a dark, hungry hole that too many men fell down.

Pour the coffee. Sit back down at the table. Don’t look at Lucy. Hate Flynn, the way you’ve been doing this whole time.

Christopher was saying something that was obviously pissing off Mason, and Lucy was quickly intercutting in to try and diffuse it. Always the peacemaker, his Lucy.

Not 'his' Lucy. Not anymore.

Flynn looked fucking amused about the whole thing, like this was all just some show put on for his entertainment. Wyatt kind of wanted to kick him under the table to make him pay attention—but that would mean he was paying attention to Flynn and he wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

God, he wished that Flynn was still popping in their lives just to fuck them up. He wished he still hated Flynn. Hate was so simple, hate was easy. He didn’t need this bullshit, not when he was already sitting there aching for Lucy and knowing he’d never get her, didn’t even deserve her but wanting her, loving her, all the same. He had enough fuckery in his head for two lifetimes. He didn’t need more of this.

Rufus, sitting next to him, nudged him gently. “You okay?” He whispered, his voice barely audible.

Wyatt wasn’t looking at either of them but he could feel Lucy and Flynn’s eyes both on him, at the same time for fuck’s sake, like they were silently checking up on him by mutual agreement.

“Fine,” he whispered back. He took a sip of coffee even though it was too hot, scalding his tongue, sliding down his throat like lava. Pain was simple.

Hate was simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where captainofthefallen started yelling at me and demanding to know when it all worked out and I was like hold on Wyatt needs to have a sexuality crisis first.


	7. Chapter 7

Wyatt had broken up with Jess.

The thought kept swirling around Lucy’s head, even though she knew it shouldn’t. Wyatt hadn’t done it because he fell out of love with Jess, and he didn’t do it because he realized he loved Lucy more. He’d done it because Jess had wanted it.

It was smarter, anyway. Lucy knew that Denise had spoken to Wyatt about letting Jess go, if only to keep her safe from the clutches of Rittenhouse. It was just luck that Jess was happy for this to happen. It would have been painful for Wyatt to have to break it off to her for her own safety and break poor Jess’s heart. It wasn’t like Jess asked for any of this.

Well, at least one person in all of this was happy. Jess could now go and find someone else, someone she’d be happy with.

Lucy stepped into the shower—the shower that she and Flynn had fucked in not twenty-four hours ago. That had been kind of reckless, but Flynn had clearly not wanted to take no for an answer and Lucy had been more than happy to oblige him. Besides, they hadn’t gotten caught, so it was fine.

She didn’t know what put Flynn in these moods. They were always a little rough with each other but every so often he’d get commanding, dominating, like yesterday when he’d spun her around and fingered her until she was begging for him, her moans bouncing off the tiles, and then he’d bent her over and just _taken_ her.

Lucy shivered at the memory, her hand sliding down her body. She’d put the chair in front of the door, right? Nobody was going to walk in…

She remembered how Flynn had touched her yesterday. Not Garcia, never his first name. That way led to madness, would take her off the edge of the cliff she’d been so careful, so very careful, not to fall off. She’d kept her balance in little ways and using only his last name was one of them. If she gave too much, took too much, then it would be all over. She’d lose him.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that. Now was the time to think about the way he’d touched her, claimed her, how she liked being claimed by him…

Claiming was false, though. She’d thought that Wyatt had claimed her, too, as they’d tangled up in that luxurious bed together. The way that he had kissed her, deep and all-consuming, the way that he’d moved inside of her, deep and sure, like he was certain of nothing but her and their connection…

Then he’d left her. Or rather he’d been stolen from her. Or had she done the stealing? After all, Jess had him first.

Lorena had Flynn first, too. If Lorena came back…

But no, Flynn had told her, he’d said he wouldn’t go back to her, that he couldn’t. She had to cling to that, she had to trust that he meant that and that even if Lorena returned that Flynn would stay with her, that every time he moved with her, touched her, kissed her, bruised her, that he meant it…

She shook, and not just from the pleasure as her fingers worked inside of her. Focus, focus, think about what it felt like when Flynn touched her.

She was so selfish. So stupid. She wanted both of them.

Flynn behind her, his hands sliding over her breasts, his mouth running along the curve of her shoulder… and Wyatt in front of her, kneeling down, his tongue making a trail down her stomach before he dove between her legs, licking at her… Flynn’s fingers there as well, thicker and longer than hers, stretching her wide, both of them working her…

Her breath started to come in harsh pants. Fuck, she hadn’t been this turned on in ages. Her spine all but melted at the thought of Wyatt, at the thought of Flynn, but the idea of the two of them together—it was like a supernova went off inside of her. Getting to touch both of them, being touched by both of them, maybe seeing the two of them touch each other—

Her legs nearly gave out on her and she had to brace herself against the tiles. Her head fell back and she shuddered violently, hips jerking and throat working dryly as she came.

Lucy rested her head against the tile.

It would never work. Flynn and Wyatt wouldn’t ever get along that well, for one thing. She thought, personally, that they could be friends. They were so alike—maybe that was why she loved both of them, since they were so similar, and she was drawn to the same things in both of them. But they were also different. Wyatt was soft, sweet, open in his emotions whether they were good or bad. Flynn was closed off, needed control, projected his rough edges like armor.

They’d be good friends, if they just let themselves. They’d balance one another out.

But Lucy didn’t dare say that to them. Flynn would be disgusted and Wyatt would be angry. Their stubborn pride kept them from even considering camaraderie.

As for anything more than friendship… she suspected, and had for a while, that Flynn wasn’t straight. But Wyatt? Yeah, that’d be a cold day in Hell. He’d been in the army, for crying out loud, and she knew enough about his upbringing before that to know… even if he’d wanted something like that, it had been viciously stamped out of him, years before now.

And even if Wyatt was open to the possibility, he’d never do anything with Flynn.

She was at an impasse.

If only Amy was there. Amy would know just what to say. She had this way of looking at things where they were so simple to her. Sometimes that had upset Lucy. Like when Amy had told her to stand up to Mom. She’d made it sound easy, when for Lucy it was anything but.

She could well remember the fight they’d had when Mom had asked Lucy to move in with her.

“I got that cough checked out, like you asked,” she’d said. “It’s cancer.”

There was a fifty-fifty chance, the doctors had said. Lucy had just gotten her doctorate and Mom had said it was perfect timing.

“I want to spend more time with you, my eldest, I’ve hardly seen you with how hard you’ve been working.”

Just like Mom, to make Lucy feel guilty for working hard when she was the one who’d been telling her to work hard in the first place, to work harder, to triple check her sources, on and on and on.

And Amy had said, “Just tell her no. Tell her that you’re going to take a job in New England or something. You’re the best out there, I know you’ll have offers.”

That was Amy. Just stand up to Mom, Lucy. It was so simple to her.

Lucy had argued with her, of course, but now she would give anything to have Amy there right now.

Amy would take one look at this tangled mess and say, “Well this sure is something, isn’t it Lucy?”

Then she’d grin conspiratorially at her and waggle her eyebrows. And she’d present Lucy with a solution so simple, it had to almost sound ridiculous.

 _I’d do what you said,_ she thought. As if Amy could somehow hear her. _Whatever advice you gave, I’d do it. I should have listened to you years ago._

Maybe if she’d stood up to Mom all this time, Mom would know it was futile making her work for Rittenhouse. Maybe she’d have realized sooner that Lucy wasn’t going to follow along like a docile lamb.

If only she’d listened to Amy.

Now she couldn’t. Amy was gone.

Lucy turned off the water and hastily dried herself off, putting clothes back on. She could possibly try talking to Rufus or Jiya about it. Rufus might actually have a heart attack, though. And Jiya would probably think she was insane.

That was the great thing about Amy. Nothing was too crazy for her. Wanting to run away and join a band? Amy loved the idea. Planning on taking up a double minor in college along with her two majors? Amy told her she could pull it off. Loving two men at once? Amy was down for it.

Lucy missed Mom, but she was starting to wonder if she really missed her or if she missed who she wished Mom was. But missing Amy… it was like having to leave a bullet inside of her. She’d figure out a way around it, she would, but she almost didn’t want to. She almost wanted the pain to stay. Because if she got used to it and the pain went away, it meant that she was forgetting Amy. It meant Amy would truly be gone.

Lucy got back into her clothes and scrubbed ruthlessly at her face. Crying over Wyatt, crying over Flynn, now crying over Amy. Was that all she did nowadays? Cry?

A voice in her head that sounded rather like her mother told her she was better than that. She wasn’t a whiny crybaby who did nothing but sit around and feel sorry for herself.

Lucy squared her shoulders. She was fine. She could handle this. She just had to keep it together. Keep up the balancing act.

She had Flynn, at least, for now, she reminded herself. She had Wyatt’s friendship, if nothing else.

Something was better than nothing.

It was fine.


	8. Chapter 8

Eventually they had to work out a kind of pattern.

Flynn and Wyatt were both good for protection and fighting skills. Flynn was also a bit of a historian—had to be, after all his gallivanting through time and his research on Rittenhouse—although not nearly as good as Lucy. He also had rudimentary piloting skills and so Rufus was teaching him and Jiya simultaneously.

This meant that now, one of the original three could take breaks if they needed to.

This had inevitably led to arguing.

Lucy refused to be left behind, no matter what, this was a part of her family legacy and she had a right to be there to stop it.

Rufus refused to be left behind because did they really think he was letting Jiya back in that thing without him? Were they insane? His girlfriend was not going to risk her health any further, at least not without him around.

Wyatt had, of course, refused to be left behind. Let Flynn, their enemy, go alone with Lucy and Rufus? Two people who could barely shoot a gun still and had no hand-to-hand combat skills whatsoever? It was like giving two tiny newborn lambs to a ravenous wolf, if you asked Wyatt.

Of course, when he was spending a lot of time with Jessica, he found that had as good as gotten him the short straw.

Flynn had gone off with Lucy and Rufus, and Wyatt had to tolerate it. The smug look on Flynn’s face when they came back safe and sound had made Wyatt want to punch the guy square in the jaw.

Now, though, Jess was out of the picture. And so Wyatt had insisted on going again.

“The original team!” Rufus had said ecstatically.

Christopher had other ideas.

“You really think I haven’t noticed the strain this is placing on all of you?” Christopher said, her arms folded and her voice going into Stern Mom Mode. She was totally the mom who doled out the punishments at home, Wyatt could tell. “You’re all rotating.”

“Please don’t put me alone with Wyatt and Flynn,” Rufus blurted out.

“I can handle them,” Jiya replied.

“I will decide the rotations,” Christopher said. “We’ll make a chart so that everyone can see and it’s fair.”

There really hadn’t been much else Wyatt could say to that.

So, he had to put up with sitting on his butt in the bunker from time to time, wondering if his memory would change as he sat there, wondering if when they got back, something in him would have fundamentally altered. Would he stop loving Lucy? Would he not recognize any of them? Would he and Jess be back together again?

It was kind of terrifying, knowing that you were at the mercy of events beyond your control. How did Christopher and Mason stand it?

Today, though, today was good. Today it was him, Lucy, and Rufus. Just like old times.

Rufus was obviously happy about it. He fretted something fierce when Jiya piloted and he was still skittish around Flynn.

Wyatt wasn’t sure which idea was worse: spending time with Lucy, the woman he knew he was in love with and couldn’t have, or spending time with Flynn, the man who was giving him a worryingly electric feeling in the pit of his stomach and who Wyatt had generally been trying to avoid ever since he’d walked in on the bathroom sex.

This particular mission took them to the Stonewall Riots, June 28th, 1969.

Lucy had been more excited than he would have thought.

“This was a huge day for the LGBT community,” she said, her voice taking on that high-pitched, almost young quality that it did whenever she was talking about a piece of history she really loved. “The most marginalized people in the community just rose up and—”

“Quick question,” Rufus said, interrupting. “Why do I have to be the drag queen here?”

This whole thing was making Wyatt feel sick. Not that—he didn’t judge anyone else, okay? Go live your life and all that, God knew that their jobs were giving them a bunch of reasons to seize the moment and know that nothing was certain.

But he kept finding himself unable to look anyone in the eye. Every time he did he just saw another new soldier, there to replace the one who’d just been kicked off—good soldiers, all of them, good men, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time as if they all didn’t touch each other when they were in the middle of nowhere for months and a guy needed a little something more than just his hand.

Or he’d look someone in the eye, like Marsha P. Johnson, and he’d hear his dad’s voice in his head, full of venom, or the boys who kicked Jake Byers until his ribs cracked, and he’d want to throw up. And it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own, that these voices wouldn’t leave him alone.

 _How could you possibly even think of wanting this_ , they seemed to scream at him.

“I’ll be right back,” he found himself saying throughout the day.

He’d go to the back alley, or the restroom, lock himself in, lock himself out, brace his hand against the wall and try to remember what breathing felt like.

One time, Jess had asked him how he could stand to not talk about his tours of duty. She’d thought he should talk to someone about them, even if it wasn’t a therapist.

“You can’t keep all those secrets,” she’d said.

But that’s the thing about secrets, he’d wanted to tell her. If you don’t say them out loud, you can pretend they don’t exist. That they’re not real.

He should’ve known that he’d learned that before the army, back in Texas, learning to keep a secret so well he didn’t know it even existed inside him, festering, until it had run over him like a speeding train.

Maybe this was why you hated Flynn so much, said the voice in his head that sounded a lot like Jess, matter of fact and resigned.

Hate is easy. Hate is simple.

Wyatt watched the others around them, in their little sanctuary, Stonewall Inn, hoping to maybe get some answers from them. They were so loud about it, so full of life about it, and his skin felt too small at the kind of twisting-snake envy in his stomach.

All of these people around him seemed to just _know_. Like it was on a piece of paper handed to them at birth: You are alive, you have blue eyes, you’re also a butch lesbian. This is who you are, this is who you’ll always be. There was this kind of rebellious pride in their eyes that Wyatt didn’t know if he could ever, would ever feel, a comfort in their own skin that he hadn’t felt in his entire life.

Maybe the nightmares the army gave him only tightened his skin up a little more. Maybe he’d always been uncomfortable, wanting to claw his way out of a life, a suit, that wasn’t quite right for him.

He wanted to ask them, how can you do it? How can you live with yourself? The same question he’d wanted to ask Flynn. He was smack in the middle of his thirties and having a crisis on every level and he didn’t know whether he should grab someone and spill everything or shove it all back down into the darkness, smother it until it could never rise up again.

It was still a toss-up.

After they managed to stop the Rittenhouse agents from quelling the riots, they had to wait it out in a seedy motel until morning, when the coast would be clear and police would stop looking for the three ‘rabble rousers’.

“Why was it so important that these riots happen?” Wyatt asked.

Rufus was passed out on the bed, snoring like a goddamn chainsaw. Lucy was perched on a chair, chin in her hand, looking out the window.

She was so beautiful. Wyatt might not be certain of a lot in life, especially at this moment, but he was certain of his feelings for her. It was like a constant ache in his chest, a bullet wound that wouldn’t heal.

“These were the riots that showed the LGBT community that they needed to band together and form a cohesive community,” Lucy told him. “The first gay pride parade was held just next year. All the pushing for rights, the parades, the opening of gay bars… it was all from this. This was where it started.

“Without this, the community would have gone on fractured for a lot longer. Who knows if it even would have gotten together at all. Until now there wasn’t much organization. Everyone was under the radar and everybody belonged to their own group, separate from the others.” Lucy paused. “It’s an oversimplification, but I’m guessing you don’t want the three-hour lecture.”

“You’re good,” Wyatt replied. “So Rittenhouse—they were trying to stop the gay community from getting its shit together.”

“Basically.”

“You seem oddly passionate about this,” Wyatt added.

He swallowed hard, not sure if he should ask the question. But he remembered how Lucy behaved around Hedy Lamar—the same way she’d behaved around Ian Fleming and Robert Todd Lincoln. And Lucy had been rather into it today. When she’d been helping to start the riot, yelling and screaming and throwing things, it hadn’t looked at all fake to him. Lucy wasn’t someone prone to violence. Yet here she’d been enthusiastic, defiant, even.

“Are you…” Wyatt cleared his throat. Why was this so hard? “I mean, do you…”

Lucy turned to look at him and smiled gently. It was the first time, Wyatt realized with a jolt, that she’d smiled at him since he’d gotten the news about Jess being alive.

“Wyatt,” she asked, gently, “are you asking if I’m bisexual?”

Wyatt nodded. He was asking her, not talking about himself, but he still felt terrified.

Lucy looked at him kindly, and Wyatt wondered if she was reading in him what he was scared to see in himself. “Yes.”

“Have you ever… done anything? About it?”

“If you consider a one night stand with Josephine Baker to have ‘done anything’, then yes.” Lucy’s smile was like quicksilver, there and gone in a flash.

“Josephine Baker?” Holy shit. He kind of wanted to high-five Lucy.

Lucy laughed. “Yes. She’s quite lovely, you would’ve liked her.”

“How did you know?” Wyatt blurted out. “When did you know?”

Lucy paused, chewing her lip the way she did when she was thinking. “It was something I sort of came to realize gradually. Little things that started to add up, like realizing I looked at a woman the same way I looked at a man.”

“And what was it like? Was it…” Wyatt fished for words. “Scary?”

“Oh, you bet.” Lucy gave a soft, sad laugh. “Especially with my mom. I actually had a girlfriend in college, sophomore year. Sara. She was beautiful, and so sweet. I was so relieved when she decided to join the Peace Corps because it meant we’d have to break up. Neither of us thought it was fair to tie the other one down when we’d be separated for two years. But I was glad because… because my mom, I don’t think she actually has anything against any sexuality, but she was always pushing for me to someday get married and have kids.”

Lucy gave another laugh, this one harsh and cold. “I know now it’s because she wanted me to continue the Rittenhouse line. Maybe even marry into another Rittenhouse family. Bloodlines. They’re still powerful in a way, in that group. Like royalty. Or Hitler’s whole Aryan purity bullshit.

“But at the time I just thought it was what she wanted because she wanted grandkids or something, or because she wanted me to live my life exactly like hers. I get now, why she never put that pressure on Amy. Amy wasn’t of two Rittenhouse bloodlines and she knew Amy would never follow anyone’s orders. But she still had hope…” Lucy shook her head. “I wish I’d stood up to her sooner, that’s all.”

“Hey, don’t be like that.” Wyatt moved forward before he was even thinking about it, putting his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “You were doing your best. She was your mom, you loved her.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” Lucy said, her voice small and quiet.

Wyatt would do anything to erase that look from her face. “So, Sara, huh? She sounds cute.”

“She was.” Lucy smiled, a genuine one this time. “I remember looking at her in my Intro to Anthropology class and just feeling like I’d been hit by lightning.”

Yeah, that felt about right. “So you knew. From when you were a teenager.”

Lucy nodded. “Yes.”

“But do you think it’s possible not to know? Not to even really… when it’s something you’re not even allowed to think about, do you think your brain might not let you really think about it until even later?”

Because as he thought about it, he could remember a few stray sparks of thought. That one quarterback in junior year, the way Wyatt’s eyes had sort of drifted to watch the guy as he bent over. A couple of guys on his tour, gaze lingering on their bodies as they stripped down in the shared bunkers for just a few seconds too long. Hazy things, thoughts he wouldn’t let come to fruition, thoughts he’d just shaken off. Thoughts the people around him had made him shake off, a plant denied sunlight so it withered and died in the soil.

Lucy looked up at him, concern making the lines of her face stand out. “Wyatt… are you saying you think you’re…”

“I don’t know.” Wyatt knew he spoke too quickly, panicky, his voice strangled. “I don’t—it’s not—we don’t talk about it. Where I grew up. Then the army—it just, you don’t talk about it. And I like women. I didn’t…”

Lucy stood up, her eyes warm in a way they hadn’t been in ages. “It’s okay,” she told him, and he realized that he was shaking a little. “Wyatt, come here, it’s okay.”

She pulled him into her arms and Wyatt went, of course he did, his body molding around hers like they’d never been separated. Lucy’s arms were arm and her voice soft as she murmured in his ear.

“It’s okay, Wyatt, it’s okay. I promise. It’s okay.”

In the soft warm darkness, stuck in the ‘60s, with Lucy holding him, it was almost easy to believe her.

 

* * *

 

Lucy held Wyatt as he kept shaking in her arms, like he might cry but didn’t want to.

_Oh, Wyatt, how long have you held this in?_

She could so easily understand. He’d grown up in a small town, and with the kind of father he had… well. And he was right. He liked women, and so it was easy to only focus on them. Lucy had been the same with men. She’d had Sara, and then a few one night stands, but she was always so careful not to let people know—just in case they talked to her mother.

It was just easier with men.

But even when in love with a man—even in love with Wyatt, in love with Flynn—it felt like a kind of betrayal to ignore the part of her that lingered on a pretty girl in a skirt. Being with a man and being openly bi wasn’t the same as being with a man and hiding that part of yourself. It wasn’t the same at all.

“Did Jess know?”

Wyatt shook his head, his face buried into her shoulder. “I didn’t know, how could she know?”

“Sometimes the people outside us can see things in ourselves that we can’t. We’re too close, sometimes.”

Amy had guessed, before Lucy had. That had been a hell of a conversation.

“I’m still not sure,” Wyatt admitted. “Is that okay?”

“Of course it is. Human sexuality is…” Lucy paused. She doubted Wyatt would appreciate an academic lecture. “It’s complicated. You’re allowed to take your time.”

Wyatt’s arms tightened around her.

“Are you upset?” She asked.

Wyatt shrugged.

“Scared?”

Wyatt nodded.

Lucy rubbed her hands up and down his back. It was so good to be able to hold him like this, to be able to comfort him. She breathed in his warm, comforting scent and felt something in her chest settle. This was how it should always be, a part of her mind whispered. She and Wyatt comfortable, Flynn waiting for her back home… both of them, holding equal parts of her heart.

If only it would stay that way.

“You’re not sick. You’re not broken.”

“I know that,” Wyatt said quickly—too quickly. He added, “And I don’t. Know that.”

Somebody, probably several somebodies, had taught him to be afraid of this. “It’s hard to get over what you’ve been told your whole life.”

Wyatt made a wet, raw sound. Lucy held him tighter. “It’s okay to want someone, whoever they are, okay? Amy—Amy taught me that, she wouldn’t let me hate myself for it. I kept trying to say it was just random, I was a teenager full of hormones, it was just a phase. She wouldn’t let me deny myself like that.”

“I love women, I’m not, I’ve never lied about that, okay?” Wyatt’s voice was harsh and Lucy didn’t know if he was talking to her or to himself. “I never lied about that.”

“I know.”

“I never lied to you.”

Lucy swallowed, closing her eyes for a moment. “I know.”

“Do you think you can hate someone?” Wyatt paused. “Because—because not that they’re a bad person, maybe they are but it’s not because of that, but because—you can feel, that they’re going to, fuck, I don’t know, expose something and then you’ll be exposed and you can’t hide like a fucking—bug under a microscope or… shit, I don’t know.”

Lucy wondered if he was thinking of men he’d known over the years, men he’d recoiled from without knowing why, hating them irrationally, because letting them get close even in friendship opened up a door that Wyatt was too terrified to open. A door that maybe he hadn’t even let himself know was there.

“You heard my grandfather. This has been going on for decades, Wyatt. It’s okay to let yourself want something. It’s not wrong. And if society taught you the opposite then yes, I can see why hating them was… a kind of self-preservation.”

Wyatt was silent, just holding her, like he was scared he’d float away and she was the only thing anchoring him.

“You know nobody’s going to judge you, right? Christopher’s got a wife and kids. You know about me. Rufus and Jiya would certainly never judge you. Flynn…” She stopped herself. She couldn’t speak for Flynn, not when he hadn’t confirmed it for her.

Wyatt shook his head. “I know,” he said, his voice muffled from being pressed into her shoulder. “But how do I handle… how do I live knowing that there was this whole part of me that was so, just, suppressed and stamped down that I didn’t even know about it. How could I not… not know, about myself, so much?”

“We’re constantly changing,” Lucy told him. She kept her voice low and soothing. “I’m still learning things about myself.” Like the fact that she could be in love with two people at once, that she could want both of them, unsatisfied with just one or the other.

“I feel like I betrayed myself, somehow. That I have to become a whole new person.” Wyatt pulled back a little and gestured out the window. “Like I have to be like—and there’s nothing wrong with, that, at all. But I don’t want to have to change all of who I am. I want to still be me.”

“And you are,” Lucy told him. “You’re still you. Nothing of who you are changes. We’re all just people, Wyatt. You’re still Wyatt, and you present yourself how you want to present yourself.”

Wyatt wiped at his eyes, his breathing harsh and shallow. God, she’d give anything, anything at all to take his pain away. “Just breathe, okay? Just breathe with me.”

“Feels like I haven’t been able to do that for days,” Wyatt admitted, his voice strained.

“That’s the thing, you can do that now.” Lucy took his hands in hers, squeezing them. “You can relax, now. You can let go.”

Wyatt nodded, some of the tight fear in his face loosening up. “I’ll—try.”

That was all anyone could ask of themselves, really. To try.

“Can I ask what brought this on?” she asked.

Wyatt swallowed, all the fear returning to his face, looking like a deer in the headlights. “Nothing. I just—nothing.”

“Was it something that happened today?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Yeah. This whole day—yeah.” Wyatt nodded.

For somebody who could lie really well when on a mission, he sure was shit at it in front of her.

But she didn’t press. “Okay.” Whatever had caused him to come to this realization, it wasn’t her business if he didn’t want to share. She was just so glad that he was confiding in her again, hugging her again.

“I won’t tell the others,” she added. “Your secret, if you want it to be a secret, is safe with me.”

Wyatt nodded. “Thanks, Lucy.”

“Of course.”

He hugged her again, fiercely. “I really mean it. Thank you.”

Lucy hugged him back, while she still could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that I’m doing a good job with Wyatt’s journey here. I’m bi and had a bit of a crisis myself, but I was also very fortunate to a) be a teenager and b) have a loving and supportive environment that welcomed my sexuality. So my journey, naturally, was a bit different from Wyatt’s. If there’s anything I need to do better, feel free to (kindly) let me know.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter today guys, I apologize! Much longer chapter tomorrow to make up for it though.

They got back from the mission, declaring it a success.

Wyatt wasn’t sure how much of a success it was when he felt like he’d been run over by a train.

Something of it must’ve shown on his face because Flynn gave him a once-over, a smug sort of smile on his face. “Enjoy your weekend, Logan?”

Wyatt flushed hot, the combination of Flynn’s gaze and his tone making Wyatt’s stomach do horribly familiar things.

“Everything was fine,” Lucy said, using her _I am the boss_ tone, the one that seemed to work magic on Flynn.

Sure enough, Flynn immediately backed off. “And how was it for you?” He said, switching his attention to Lucy. “Stonewall Riots, wish I could’ve gone.”

Something about the way he said that made Wyatt’s gaze jerk back over to him. Was Flynn…?

Lucy hadn't said anything about Flynn's preferences. Hell, he could be straight as a 2x4 for all that Wyatt knew. But Flynn just now, had that same tone in his voice that Lucy had when she'd talked about the riots, this tone of personal pride, and maybe...

Wyatt only realized he was staring when Flynn started staring back. “Yes, Logan?”

“Nothing.” Jesus Christ, he needed to get a hold of himself. Flynn was giving him this piercing, almost amused kind of look, one that Wyatt couldn't start to decipher or he'd find himself doing something extremely embarrassing. “I’ll, uh, be back. Gotta take a shower.”

What the fuck was he, a fourteen-year-old? Straighten the fuck up, Logan!

Straighten. Ha. Ha. Ha.

"A shower?" He heard Christopher asked Lucy, like she wanted to ask what they could have possibly gotten up to during the mission that would warrant an immediate shower but she also kind of didn't want to know.

"Mosquitos," Rufus said solemnly. "Do not. Ever take us back. To where there are mosquitos. Before they invented bug spray."

Wyatt all but ran for the shower, making sure to put the chair in front because if Jiya walked in on him this time he'd have no choice but to keel over and die to preserve his dignity.

Standing there in the dark with Lucy, with her reassuring smiles and soft words, it had felt possible. Easy, almost. But now, back with the others, even though he knew they wouldn't judge him, it felt like he was stepping into the harsh light of day after being cooped up in a dimly lit room for a week. It couldn't really be that easy, could it?

The water pounded against his back, cocooning him almost. There was nobody else here. It was just him.

Maybe it wasn't so much that it wasn't easy. It was easy, the way letting go when you were hanging from a cliff was easy. The hard part was knowing if there'd be someone to catch you at the bottom or if you'd get smashed to pieces.

Wyatt all but tore his hair out. All that he'd been taught growing up was screaming at him that he couldn’t—he wasn’t—because if he did…

Everything felt all fucked up in his head. Nobody had ever sat him down, his dad hadn't ever sat him down, and said, "Son if you like men you better cut that right the fuck out because it's a sin and you're an awful person and also I'll kill you." But he hadn't needed to. He'd said it in the way that he'd lived his life. Wyatt's neighborhood, his school, had said it. Society had said it. The army had said it. It was just one of those things that you absorbed.

Now he wasn't so sure that they'd all be all that right to think that. Lucy certainly wasn't an awful person for it. Lucy was the best person he knew. If she could... if she could enjoy both, and be happy, then maybe he could, too?

Okay. Think about it like a mission. Or a goddamn science experiment.

The question: was he bi?

More specifically: was he bi and attracted to Garcia Flynn?

It felt like a horrible betrayal to Lucy. He was in love with her. That wasn’t going away, he would know if that feeling went away and it hadn’t. The thought of trailing his mouth over her skin, of sliding his hand between her legs, that still got him turned on. And he still found himself reaching out for her, wanting to just hold her hand, sleep next to her at night, spend time with her.

But if he was in love with Lucy, to be this helplessly… whatever he was, towards Flynn…

It hadn’t been that way when he’d been with Jess. He hadn’t been drawn to Jess anymore. He just… hadn’t. Where there had once been this electric current of passion and connection and intimacy, there was now nothing but emptiness.

But this was two things at once. This was simultaneous.

Fuck, what the hell was going on with him?

All right. Before anything else, he had to figure out if this thing with Flynn was even… if he was even…

Okay, well, thinking about being with Lucy got him hard, right? So… if thinking about Flynn…

Nobody could possibly come in and see him but Wyatt still felt like he should be looking around furtively to check if anyone was watching. As if someone could actually see what was going on in his mind. He felt ridiculous, like a kid trying out masturbation for the first time.

Just approach it like a mission. Figure out the objective.

Wyatt thought about what he’d seen when Flynn and Lucy had been having sex. The power in Flynn’s muscles, the way he’d gripped Lucy, hard enough that he must have left bruises…

He thought of Flynn coming up behind him like that instead of Lucy, of Flynn digging his fingers into Wyatt’s hips instead, Flynn wrapping his arm around Wyatt’s waist…

Okay. Uh, yup, that seemed to be doing it for him. Wyatt moved his hand down between his legs, squeezing gently, teasing himself because he could easily imagine Flynn doing that—being rough one day and then teasing, drawing it out, making him beg the next—

Wyatt’s breath came harder, his hand moving faster. Flynn moving his hand between Wyatt’s legs, Flynn touching him like this, Flynn’s low voice in his ear, telling Wyatt all the things Flynn was going to do to him. He liked the idea of giving as good as he got, too, of kissing Flynn savagely, drawing blood, crashing together, hands roaming all over, yanking Flynn up against him, making bruises, rutting hard and shameless, bodies sliding together slick and hard and oh _fuck_ —

Wyatt stared at the white stains on the tile, watching as the running water washed them away.

So. Definitely bi for at least one man.

He was so very, very fucked.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much longer chapter this time, hoo boy.

Breaking up with Jessica hadn’t been enough to save her.

In the eyes of the law, she was still Mrs. Wyatt Logan. That was enough for Rittenhouse.

Denise insisted that Wyatt stay put. “The world thinks you’re dead, Logan, we need to keep it that way. If Rittenhouse finds out you and Rufus survived that bomb, they’ll come at us even harder.”

So far, every Rittenhouse agent they’d come across on their missions who’d seen Wyatt or Rufus had died. Lucy knew they couldn’t continue to be so lucky.

“I’ve got a team on it,” Denise continued. “SWAT, they’re well-trained but low-level. They’ll get her back.”

Lucy should’ve known Wyatt wouldn’t leave it at that. She should have known that he would go after Jess himself. Of course he would—he was still in love with her, after all, even if she’d broken things off.

What she hadn’t expected was for Flynn to go after him.

 

* * *

 

If Logan thought that nobody knew what he was planning, he was an idiot.

So what if he’d broken things off with Jess? Logan was loyal. Down to his bones. He’d think that this whole kidnapping thing was his fault and that it was his duty to save Jess.

Flynn couldn’t blame him. He’d do the same thing if it was Lorena’s life at stake. Even more so, if it were Iris’s. He’d tear down an army bare-handed if someone was hurting Iris.

But if Logan went after Rittenhouse solo, he’d die. There was just no way around it. There were more of them, they had the upper hand, it would be on their turf—and they had no qualms about killing. Logan wouldn’t hurt Jess, and they could use that against him.

Flynn saw a little red on the edges of his vision at the thought of Rittenhouse using Jess against Logan. Why did the man have to be so damn predictable? Why did he have to wear his heart so obviously on his sleeve?

He’d be damned if he let Logan get himself killed being stupidly heroic like this.

When Agent Christopher said Logan wasn’t to go after Jess, to let the SWAT team handle it, Flynn was ready.

When Logan bolted out of the bunker, Flynn was right behind him.

He was questioning himself all the way as he followed Logan, not letting the other man know he had a tail, knowing Logan would get pissed off, his pride wounded, if he saw that Flynn was following him. Why was he doing this? Letting Logan get killed, wouldn’t that make his life easier? Once he would have liked nothing more than to pull the trigger himself, get this annoyance out of his way—and, furthermore, it would leave the way to Lucy’s heart clear.

Flynn could lie to himself, say he was doing it just for Lucy, to keep Logan alive for her. But it wasn’t the full truth. There wasn’t the thought of Lucy’s feelings in his head when he thought of Logan giving up his life, letting Rittenhouse have him, if Rittenhouse pulled what Flynn thought they would pull and make Logan exchange himself for Jess. It wasn’t on Lucy’s behalf that Flynn filled with rage, wanted to shoot every last one of Rittenhouse in the head.

He was concerned about Logan for Logan’s own sake.

And well, if that wasn’t a surprising development.

But when the Rittenhouse agent put a gun to Jess’s head, told Logan to put his own weapon down or she’d be a goner… now Flynn was there.

He’d circled around the back, taken down a couple of agents guarding the side entrance.

Logan was standing there, clutching at his side. He’d been hit, Flynn could see the blood seeping out from between Logan’s fingers.

Flynn lost his mind just the tiniest bit at the sight.

The agent was doing that lecturing thing that they all seemed to love—ah, the joys of fighting extremists with a manifesto—and had a death grip on Jess’s arm. The gun was pressed right up against her temple.

Time was of the essence. Already Logan looked pale. If he didn’t get medical help soon…

No. Not going to happen. Flynn wouldn’t let it happen.

He put a bullet in the back of the agent’s head without a second thought.

Jess jumped, screaming in fear. Logan’s eyes went wide in shock but then his protective instincts kicked in and he darted forward, catching Jess and soothing her.

As he held her, though, he looked over her shoulder at Flynn. Flynn could read the _you idiot, what were you thinking_ as clearly as if Logan had said it out loud.

Flynn just rolled his eyes. Saved both Jess and Logan’s life and that was the thanks he’d gotten.

Typical.

He patched Logan up on the way home, Logan half in his lap, Jess driving in the front seat and going off of Flynn’s directions.

“Don’t you die on me, Logan,” he ordered, patching the wound up as best he could. Logan was warm and solid in his arms and Flynn intended to keep it that way.

“I’d hate to stain your clothes,” Logan replied. His head lolled back onto Flynn’s shoulder, his eyes a little glazed. A stray thought ran by that he wished Logan was doing that, looking like that, eyes glazed and breath shallow, for entirely different reasons—but then the thought was gone before he could really examine it.

He put more pressure on the wound and Logan made a pained noise. “Hate to—ruin those clothes you got. What’d you do, rob a store?”

“Agent Christopher gave me a credit card when I escaped,” Flynn told him absently. “Now who’s the wiggling one?”

“Hey, bullet wound’s a little more than split knuckles. And what, you couldn’t just hop into a K-Mart?”

Flynn made a scathing noise. “I know I just came from jail but I can still have standards.”

Logan made a pained sound that Flynn realized belatedly was laughter. “Fuck, that hurts.”

“Then stop laughing.”

“Then stop making me laugh.”

“Where’s the turn off?” Jess asked from the front seat.

Flynn focused again on giving her directions. And if his free hand was rubbing soothingly at Logan’s temple, trying to get rid of the headache he knew the other man must be having, well—it was just polite.

“Hey, Flynn?” Logan’s voice was just a whisper, barely heard.

“Yes?”

“If I don’t…” Logan coughed. “Tell Luce I love her. ‘Kay?”

Flynn tightened his grip on Logan. “You’ll make it and you can tell her yourself.” Logan wasn't going to—couldn't—die. Flynn wasn't going to let him.

Logan all but passed out on the way there, but Flynn managed to keep him awake by talking to him, hand pressed to the wound even though it was now bandaged—just in case. They were getting Logan safely to the med room if Flynn had to fucking restart the idiot's heart himself.

When they reached the bunker, Logan seemed to revive himself a little, one arm draped over Flynn's shoulders but otherwise walking pretty much under his own power, some of the color returning to his cheeks. Determined to put on a brave face in front of the others, Flynn supposed.

Mason said he knew a few people, a sort of illegal community in Europe that helped various criminal members get away from their families without resorting to Interpol or legal forms of witness protection. He’d get in touch with them and they could get Jessica Logan to safety.

Flynn felt a little bad, Jess having to give up her whole life like this, but he supposed it was better than being dead.

He half expected the spark to have been rekindled between her and Logan, but both seemed uninterested. There was a fondness to their looks and touches but a well-worn, weary kind. There was no active intimacy to it.

Lucy was, understandably, livid.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” she said, when Flynn and Logan entered, Flynn supporting Logan as he limped along. “So I can _kill you both myself_.”

Logan immediately put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, not that it did him any good. Lucy flew at him, fists flying, beating uselessly at his chest. “You stupid, idiotic, reckless, son of a _bitch_ —”

“Hey, whoa, ouch, watch it, hey, I’m fine!” Logan put his arms around her, holding her tightly until Lucy had no choice but to stop pounding on his chest and dissolve into tears.

Agent Christopher gestured for a very awkward-looking Rufus, Jiya, and Marcus to hurry out of the room.

“I’m fine,” Logan repeated. “Luce, it’s okay, I’m fine.”

“But you might not have been,” Lucy sobbed. Her whole body was shaking.

Flynn felt his chest tighten. This was how it was going to end. They were going to fall into each other’s arms and he’d be left out in the cold.

He started to make for the door. Best to give them some privacy for their reunion. He couldn’t keep the bitter tone out of his thoughts, not completely. Not that he had any right to feel bitter. God knew he didn’t deserve the kind of passion that they clearly had for each other.

“And where do you think _you’re_ going?”

Lucy yanked at his arm, roping him into a hug. Logan released her, transferring her easily into Flynn’s arms where her crying started anew.

Flynn hugged her, looking helplessly over her head at Logan.

Logan shrugged as if to say _I don’t know either, man._

“You’re both idiots,” Lucy sobbed angrily. “You’re both idiots and I hate you, I hate you both so much, I hate you I hate you I hate you—”

Flynn jerked his head at Logan, who still had to finish facing Agent Christopher’s wrath. Agent Christopher’s words when Logan had tried to protest that Flynn should be in at least as much trouble for following him:

“Last I checked he was the one who isn’t emotionally compromised, and he saved your life and provided backup. Now get in my damn office.”

“You don’t have an office, that’s the med room.”

“I said _now_ , Logan!”

Logan nodded at Flynn and exited the room, still limping. Flynn did not envy him the next hour of surgery and lecturing from Agent Christopher.

Lucy was still yelling into Flynn’s chest.

“You’re awful and a bastard and I wish I’d never met any of you and I hate you all, I hate you all, how come you keep fucking doing this to me—”

Something inside of Flynn snapped. He pulled back, gripping her by the shoulders almost as hard as he’d grabbed her arm when she’d first met him, in front of the burning wreck of the Hindenburg. “Oh, come off it, Lucy. We both know there’s only one person you were scared of losing today, and he’s managed to walk off a bullet wound.”

Lucy stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, to his surprise, her eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?”

Flynn released her shoulders. He felt tired—so very tired. “I know, okay? I get it. You’re in love with Logan. You always have been. I know what—we were—and I’m not complaining about it. But I won’t be his understudy anymore. Just go and be with him, like you want. Like you deserve.”

He genuinely did not see the slap coming. It was so hard it made his head snap back a little. He blinked the spots out of his vision and saw Lucy coming in for a second slap. He grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

“You asshole,” Lucy spat. “You think I’d be with you if I didn’t—as some kind of—”

“Don’t act like you haven’t been holding back this whole time,” Flynn replied, trying to keep the growl out of his voice. “I know, every time you wouldn’t let me say—say what you know, you have to know, Lucy, what I feel for you—”

“For the love of God, Flynn, don’t say it—”

“I love you, damn it, and you know it, you have to know it!”

They stood there for a moment, chests heaving, glaring at each other. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to tell her. This wasn’t how he’d wanted it at all. But it was there now, out in the open. He couldn’t take the words back.

Lucy wrenched her arm out of his grip. “You think I don’t feel the same? You think that what we’ve been doing I’d just do with anyone, just to, what, blow off steam?”

“You’ve never given me any reason to think it was anything else!” Flynn bellowed.

“Because if I told you how I felt, you’d leave!” Lucy screamed.

That gave Flynn pause. He gaped at her as Lucy took in gulps of air, hiccupping almost as she tried to get her crying under control.

“You’d leave,” she said, her voice small and afraid. He hadn’t heard her this scared since the first couple of times they’d met, when she’d called him a psychopath. “Every time I… I tell someone, that I love them, how much they mean to me… they leave. Amy. My mom. Wyatt.”

She looked into his eyes, her lower lip trembling. “I couldn’t lose you too. I couldn’t lose one more person I loved.”

Oh, God. “Come here.”

He opened his arms to her and she all but ran in, crying against his chest. His poor girl. How the world had taken from her so cruelly, left her so scared.

“I’m never leaving,” he promised her. “I’ll always be here and I’ll always come back, I promise. I love you, you’re everything, _mon coeur, ma vie,_ my darling, Lucy, I promise.”

“You can’t,” Lucy said, her nails digging into his shirt. “You’ll—I’ll come back from a mission and you’ll—you won’t be here, you won’t remember me, you won’t love me—”

“I’ll always love you,” he promised. “Always. I loved you before you even knew me. I’ll love you until we’re old and gray.”

Lucy shook her head, like she still couldn’t quite believe him, but then she pulled back and took his face in her hands and they were kissing, and it almost didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t believe him now but she would, in time. He’d make her believe him. He could no sooner stop loving her than he could stop breathing. She was less a person that he knew and more a part of him. To take care of her, to love her, was to take care of and love himself.

“I love you,” Lucy whispered, pressing the words into his mouth. “I love you, I do, I have, I will, Garcia—”

She’d never been so vocal during sex, never spoken so much. She’d certainly never said she loved him, or said his name.

He growled into her mouth, deepening the kiss and hoisting her up into his arms.

The couch, that was handy. Nobody else was going to dare come into this room right now. And if they did, so what? Lucy loved him. Let everybody know it.

He wanted to lay her down on the couch, but Lucy refused to leave his lap, apparently refusing to be parted from him for even a second.

Flynn had no problem with that.

The kiss was different this time, and Flynn realized how much they had each been holding back, each convinced they’d lose something precious if they really let go. Now he trailed his mouth slow and wet down her throat, pulling her shirt up and off, taking his time sucking at her breasts. He had time. They both did. Because she loved him back. He wasn’t stealing anything, she was giving.

Maybe he had finally found something that he could keep.

Lucy did have to stand up to under her damn jeans, the ones she insisted on wearing when they weren’t time traveling, and he took the opportunity to get his own pants off as well. She climbed back into his lap, wrapping her arms around him.

He couldn’t help but smile as he kissed her again. She loved him. _She loved him._

“I’ll say it as much as you want,” Lucy told him, a teasing lilt to her voice.

Flynn nuzzled at her neck, his hand sliding down her body. He must have said that last bit out loud, he realized.

“Please,” he asked, unable to say anything more. Please stay, please be real, please keep loving me.

Lucy opened for him easily, and he realized how tense she’d been before—not that she hadn’t been turned on, but that she hadn’t quite let herself relax, hadn’t let herself give into him and her feelings completely.

Now she was, and it was glorious.

He drank in every little sigh and gasp that fell from her mouth as he slowly worked her open, feeling her tremble and respond. She was wet, so wet for him, and for the first time he knew that it was really all for him, every shudder and moan was for him alone.

She locked her gaze onto his as she sank down, her arms still looped around him. “I love you,” she told him. “I love you, Garcia.”

He kissed her again and again, tasted those words on her tongue, absorbed her taste and smell and feel, memorized her, this woman who loved him.

He wasn’t worthy of her. Maybe he never would be. But oh, how he wanted to try.

They moved slowly together, much more slowly than in the past. Lucy squeezed around him, twisting her hips, keeping him on the edge. She wanted to draw this out, then, and he had no problem with that. He could stay like this forever, inside of her, feeling her heartbeat against his lips, her smooth back underneath his hands, her long dark hair falling around his face like a curtain.

It couldn’t last forever. He knew that. But it felt sort of like it, like they were trapped in a time bubble. Nothing else existed. Just the two of them, Flynn thrusting slowly up into her, watching her face, Lucy sinking back down onto him, running her hand carefully over his upper body, mapping him out. Her eyes were big and dark and wondrous, like she’d always wanted to do this but had never let herself. Flynn could relate.

He couldn’t stop tasting her. Normally they bit and scratched at each other, pressed their fingers or mouths against one another until purple bruises bloomed bright on each other’s pale skin. But this time he moved gently, kissing, sucking, barely a hint of teeth. He traced the curve of her breast, her shoulder, her neck with his tongue. Memorizing.

She fell forward when she came, shuddering, clinging to him with tenderness but, for once, without desperation. He couldn’t help but follow her, helpless to resist her as she shuddered in his arms. He felt her, so alive, so very alive and real on him, around him, and kissed her neck.

“I love you,” he whispered, feeling her shiver in response.

They could work out the rest.


	11. Chapter 11

Lucy really didn’t know how to begin the conversation.

After that mind-melting sex with Flynn, and all that she’d confessed, she hadn’t wanted to start another argument. But the fear she had felt when both Flynn and Wyatt were in danger was like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

 _Please_ , she had begged the universe. _Please, not both of them. I couldn’t even handle losing one. Don’t take both of them from me. Please._

They were finally being honest with one another, and after so long bottling everything up, she felt that she owed it to Flynn. She had thought that he must know, in some way, that she loved him. To know that he had thought of himself as second place in her heart for so long, when in truth he was tied for first, hurt her. She hadn’t meant to injure him like that.

She waited until they were curled up on Flynn’s bunk together. After their sex on the couch it was pretty impossible for everyone to not know what they were up to, so they’d sort of dropped all pretense. Nobody else was in the room, anyway. Wyatt was asleep in the med room, Rufus and Jiya were in the women’s room, and who knew what Mason was up to.

Flynn was against her back, curled around her, one of his hands idly toying with a lock of her hair.

“Garcia?”

“Hmm?”

Lucy took a deep breath.

“I meant it. I love you.”

He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

She couldn’t suppress the instinctive desire to lash out, to tell him that he couldn’t promise her that, nobody could anymore. Instead she swallowed it and said, “Do you think it’s possible to love two people equally? To want both of them, need both of them in your life?”

Flynn propped himself up on an elbow and she rolled over just enough to look up into his face. He didn’t look angry, the way she’d thought he would. Instead he looked contemplative. “Explain.”

Lucy took a deep breath. “I mean… I was attracted to you. From the beginning. Even before I wanted to admit it. And I fell in love with Wyatt. But then I fell in love with you… while staying in love with Wyatt. It never went away. And today… if someone had come to me and said, you’re going to lose one of them today, which is it, I couldn’t have chosen. I needed both of you to come home. I can’t choose one of you. I want to be with you. I love you. But I need Wyatt with me too. Not having him here… it’s like there’s something missing in my chest, something cold and empty. But when I’m not with you and I’m just with him, out on a mission, it feels the same.”

Flynn’s eyes were dark, his expression unfathomable. Lucy found her courage waning. “Do you… understand?”

The next few moments of silence were enough to have her considering getting up and leaving, maybe drowning herself in the shower. Then Flynn spoke.

“Are you suggesting… that you… would you want to approach Logan about this?”

“I don’t know if he’d be open to it.”

“He certainly won’t be open to me. But he might be open to sharing you.”

Lucy snorted, ignoring the tears that stung her eyes. “He’s still in love with Jess.”

Flynn stared at her, genuine surprise in his eyes. “Lucy… no. He’s in love with you.”

“Garcia, please—”

“I’m serious.” Flynn began stroking her hair. “He thought he might die on the car ride here. He told me to tell you, if he didn’t make it—that he loved you. Not Jess. Just you.”

Lucy felt as though she’d been drowning and could suddenly breathe again—and she knew exactly what that felt like. She heaved in a great gasp, her eyes becoming blurry again. He loved her? Wyatt still loved her?

“As I said,” Flynn shrugged. “He might be open to sharing you.”

“What if…” Lucy cleared her throat. “I mean, I’ve always thought you two get along more than you like to think you do.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Lucy, are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

She could feel her face grow hot. “I just… you know, you’re… and he’s…”

“I’m afraid I’m not a woman,” Flynn told her. “You know I’m happy with whatever gender, but for him I think that’s a rather big stumbling block.”

Lucy shook her head. “Not as big as you’d think.”

Both of Flynn’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Oh?”

“He’s not sure,” she added quickly. “And I promised not to tell anyone so you have to keep it a secret.”

Flynn stared into the middle distance, looking contemplative. “I wouldn’t be against such an… arrangement.”

Lucy sat up. “You wouldn’t?”

Flynn looked a little awkward. “It’s occurred to me that Logan’s good looking. It’s something worth thinking about, anyway.”

Lucy hugged him. “Just thinking about it is all I ask.”

“We’ll have to wait for him, though,” Flynn said, quietly. “He’ll have to come to us.”

“Or we could sit him down and talk with him about it.”

Flynn snorted. “He’ll bolt.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know men like him, Lucy, I’ve seen plenty of them. I was one of them. It’ll take more than whatever heart-to-heart you had with him to get him to accept that part of himself, if he has that part of himself.”

“Because you’re such a model for emotional maturity.”

“Says the woman who literally wouldn’t talk about her feelings.”

Lucy huffed. She didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to turn this into another yelling match. She twisted, lying on top of Flynn, her arms folded over his chest and her chin resting on her hands. “I’m sorry. I am, I’ll say it as often as you want if it’ll help.”

Flynn rolled his eyes. “I was not exactly helping, either.”

What a mess the two of them were. Still messes. It wasn’t like Lucy had stopped being afraid of losing him, or Wyatt, and it wasn’t like Flynn had magically become a good person, a person who trusted others and gave them the benefit of the doubt instead of shooting first and asking questions later. It wasn’t like either of them were suddenly more sure of themselves, less self-doubting, less self-loathing.

“But you see it, don’t you?” She coaxed. “How alike you two are? How well you’d get along if you’d just let yourselves?”

“I’m not the one you need to be talking to about this.”

Lucy huffed. “I’m not the one who came home a few days ago with blood all over me looking like he was going to take on Rittenhouse bare-handed.”

“I’m also not the one who spent thirty-four years in the closet.”

“You know his past.”

Flynn passed his hand over his eyes. “I know. I just—you ever want to shake someone until some common sense falls in?”

“We’ll talk to him about it,” Lucy said. She’d think of the right way to approach Wyatt and they’d talk it out, that was all. It would work out. It had to.

The idea of it not working out made her bones ache, made her throat close up. So she just wouldn’t entertain the idea of failure.

“Maybe I should just make out with him and see if he gets the message,” Flynn grumbled.

Lucy poked him. “Hey. Think about what I said, okay? I don’t think… I don’t think you realize how you look at him.”

“And how do I look at him?” Flynn’s tone was challenging.

“The same way you look at me,” Lucy said softly.

Flynn wrapped his arms around her but didn’t say anything. Lucy let her head fall onto his chest, listening his steady thrumming heart, feeling his chest rise and fall.

“Are you saying I’ve been blind?” Flynn mumbled, after a moment.

“I think maybe we’ve all been blind this whole time,” Lucy admitted. She was tired, so tired all the time, and she was especially tired of all of them denying themselves and each other what they wanted.

Flynn didn’t say anything to that. And maybe she was tired in the normal way too, not just in the bone-aching way, because she fell asleep on him soon after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at our babies actually talking and working out their feelings!


	12. Chapter 12

Flynn had told Lucy he’d think about this… something, that she had presented him with.

And he was.

That Logan would jump at the chance to be with Lucy, Flynn had no doubt. He might even be open to the idea of sharing Lucy. He and Logan had some kind of… almost-camaraderie thing going on. Perhaps that could extend to Lucy. In any case he knew that he and Logan both loved her, fiercely and unendingly, and it was always good to know that even if you weren’t there, there was another person there with her that was just as willing to die for her. She’d never be alone, never be unprotected.

And, well, if Lucy wanted both of them, who was he to deny her anything? She could have asked Flynn for the moon on a string and he’d have found a way to get it for her. He trusted Logan felt the same.

But Logan actually wanting Flynn as a part of the package—that, Flynn had doubts about.

For one thing, he’d never gotten so much as a blip from Logan when it came to, well, sexual attraction. Flynn was aware that there were times he’d watch Logan walk away, or let his gaze linger a second too long on Logan’s bare chest as he got dressed in the mornings. But he’d never seen the same from Logan towards him. In fact, he hadn’t seen that from Logan directed at any man. Lucy could say what she wanted, but Flynn was still pretty sure that Logan was straight.

As for himself—well, yes, Logan was attractive. Flynn had to admit that to himself. They had just enough of a height difference to make it interesting, and Logan had this perpetual-stubble thing going on that would feel amazing scraping up against Flynn’s skin. Flynn could see defiance and that fighting spirit in Logan but also this tightly-leashed desire to submit. Just look at how he followed orders, especially Lucy’s. Flynn didn’t know which idea appealed to him more: the submissive Logan or the Logan that fought and scratched and turned love into a battlefield.

Both?

Logan’s personality, though…

“Ow—dammit.”

Flynn paused, peering into the med room.

Logan had torn his bandages. Again.

Flynn was striding in there before he even realized he’d given his feet permission to move. “What the hell, Logan?”

Logan looked up, blue eyes wide and startled, but Flynn just took him by the shoulder and spun him around. “You’re a soldier, you don’t know how to let a goddamn wound heal for a few weeks?”

“You try getting something off the top shelf with your side all bandaged up,” Logan shot back.

Flynn yanked Logan’s shirt up and off, crouching down a bit to look at the wound. “Then ask for help.” Damn stubborn idiot.

“Oh yeah, because I really love asking everybody to do things for me.” Logan’s tone was snappish, but Flynn thought he could detect a kind of tremble underneath.

He grabbed some fresh bandages. “Trust me, I get it, you want to go back out in the field again. But if you ruin this healing process I’ll shoot you myself, put you out of your misery.”

“Gee, thanks doc, great bedside manner.”

“Just hold still.”

It was easier to wrap the bandage around and put it on standing behind Logan, Logan’s back practically up against Flynn’s chest. Ridiculous, stubborn… Flynn wanted to shake him and demand just what good Logan thought he’d be to anyone with an infected wound or popped stitches. Having Logan all but dying in his arms had been bad enough. He’d been so pale and clammy, sweat all over his face, blood staining everything. Flynn could still see it when he closed his eyes. He’d do whatever it took to avoid a repeat of that.

Logan kept moving. “Hold. Still.” Flynn put a hand on the center of Logan’s chest, pressing, warning him.

To his surprise, Logan stopped moving. Although his breathing was a little off. “Look at that, you do manage to follow orders,” Flynn growled, tying off the bandage. “And here I thought you’d gotten a real reputation with Delta for insubordination.”

He took Logan’s shoulder in his hands, massaging it. Logan had popped the shoulder during the fight to get to Jess. Flynn had popped it back in first thing but there might still be soreness. “Tell me this isn’t the arm you were using to reach the top shelf.”

“Maybe.” Logan’s voice sounded oddly strained, his breathing harsh.

“Isn’t this supposed to be in a sling?” For side or chest injuries, the arm was often put in a sling to prevent accidental movement that would strain the wound.

“Um…”

“Goddammit Logan. Put the damn sling on. No wonder you’re so tense.”

“I am not tense!”

Flynn snorted. “Sure, all these knots I’m feeling, that’s from all the relaxing you’ve been doing.”

He pressed down on Logan’s back. Logan made an odd noise, almost like a whimper. “See? Knots. That’s real relaxed.”

“Oh, fuck you, Flynn, I’d like to see you handle being benched.” What the hell was up with Logan’s voice? Was it always this rough?

Flynn sighed. “Brace yourself on the table.”

“What?” Logan’s voice came out as a squawk.

“I’m going to work these knots out of your back and then we’re putting your arm back in the sling and you’re not taking it out until Agent Christopher says so. Now stop being a baby.”

Logan grumbled something unintelligible but turned and braced himself lightly on the med table so that Flynn could get at his back.

“Were you always such a joy to deal with?” Flynn asked.

“Says you,” Logan replied, his voice rough. He cleared his throat. “You’re the one who was giving us trouble all these months. You know the last time I was shot was you, right?”

Flynn felt an unexpected pang of regret. It made him want to do a lot of stupid things. “Yeah. I remember.”

Silence fell. Flynn didn’t know how to say he was sorry, didn’t even know what he was feeling at that moment. The silence felt thick, oppressive, so he started talking just to fill it.

“I used to do this for Lorena. Haven’t, in a while, but she used to ask me about once a week.”

Logan made a humming sound that could have been acknowledgment.

“Someday you’re going to have to remember that people here care about you, Logan, and they’re not going to be too happy if you get an injury and then kill yourself by making it worse.”

He really should offer a massage to Lucy, actually. Some of the tension had gone out of her since the other day, the confessions lifting some weight off her shoulders. Flynn hadn’t even known all that weight was there until it was gone, her eyes clearer and brighter and her step livelier. But she was still staying up too late, still too tense, still obsessed with destroying what she felt was her responsibility.

Funny, that he would offer this to Logan before Lucy. He really only used to give massages to the people he—

Oh.

Flynn almost stumbled backward and had to force himself to keep moving like nothing was happening. Like he hadn’t just had a metaphorical sack of bricks dumped on his head.

His protectiveness over Logan, his fear for him, the way he just had to take care of him…

Lucy was going to die laughing when she heard. She’d been dead right. How could he have been so stupid?

He kind of idly brought his hands down to Logan’s lower back, not even thinking about it, pressing down with his thumbs and then moving his hands to the side, almost at Logan’s hips—

Logan let out a low, small sound that could only be called a moan.

Flynn froze.

“Did you…”

“What? No, I think—I think we’re good, thanks, I’ll put my arm in the sling now.” Logan straightened up quickly, too quickly, and tried to move but Flynn was uninjured and faster. He stepped to the side, stopping Logan with a hand to his shoulder.

Logan’s face was bright red, his eyes wide and panicked. Flynn glanced down.

Well.

He owed Lucy money or something. Turned out she was right.

Logan was also into men after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just leave you all with a cliffhanger? Why yes, yes I did. Feel free to yell at me in the comments.


	13. Chapter 13

Wyatt was pretty sure this was the most embarrassing moment of his life.

He’d been doing a pretty good job of avoiding Flynn until the guy strode into the med room and insisted on putting his hands all over Wyatt. Was making him take off his shirt really necessary? And all but pressing himself up against Wyatt’s back like that, his hands drifting over Wyatt’s skin, teasing him as they redid the bandage?

Wyatt had been struggling not to let it affect him. Ever since he’d let himself think about it, it was like floodgates had been opened. He’d had an entire lifetime to get used to the idea of being attracted to women and a year to get used to being in love with Lucy, but this was brand spankin’ new. It was like his body was trying to make up for lost time.

Now he could feel the heat of Flynn’s body, his close proximity, and that damn voice curling into his ear and making him flush all over. He was shocked that Flynn hadn’t noticed the blush creeping up Wyatt’s chest yet.

Maybe he had noticed and was just being polite and ignoring it.

A few times Flynn’s fingers had brushed close to the waist of Wyatt’s jeans, and Wyatt’s knees had nearly buckled. God dammit. He wasn’t used to feeling this overwhelmed. It was like being a fourteen-year-old all over again, when just making out with a girl was enough to make him blow his load.

Then Flynn had started fucking _massaging_ him.

Wyatt really wanted to know when his life had turned into a low-budget porno.

He’d done his best to keep the noises in, even as those large hands moved all over his back, slowly driving him insane. He could feel himself straining against the denim of his jeans and he just prayed that Flynn wouldn’t notice.

He tried to think of something else to distract himself. His grandmother, dead puppies. Rufus singing in the shower.

Just when he’d thought he had it under control… Flynn had moved his hands down to the small of his back, digging in with his thumbs, then moving his hands around to the side…

It was so close to where Wyatt wanted him to touch. His dick jerked in his pants and he couldn’t bite down on the small moan fast enough.

Flynn paused.

“Did you…”

Wyatt all but jumped away from him. His face felt like it was on fire. “What? No, I think—I think we’re good, thanks, I’ll put my arm in the sling now.” He had to get out of here and away from Flynn before the other man noticed.

He moved to slip past Flynn, but the man stopped him.

Looked down.

Wyatt wondered if God would finally take pity on him and strike him with lightning or something.

“I have to say, this is a little… unexpected.” Flynn looked back up at him. Wyatt swallowed, unsure of what he was seeing in those dark eyes. “I thought you were just into women.”

“Yeah, I, uh, thought so too.” Wow, Wyatt, that was smooth. Way to go.

Flynn tilted his head. “Look at me.”

Wyatt kept his eyes on the ground. There was too much in Flynn’s eyes, too much Wyatt had already given away, he couldn’t give in—and all that he’d been thinking and feeling, all that he’d thought he’d started to accept was all getting shoved away by the snarling multilayered voices of everything and everyone he’d ever known, chanting _wrong wrong wrong_.

“Logan.” Flynn’s voice was sharp, deadly, the kind of voice that Wyatt had snapped at because he hadn’t wanted to examine the flush of heat it gave him. “Look at me.”

Wyatt snapped his eyes up to meet Flynn’s. “What do you want,” he all but snarled. “You want to laugh or something? Go ahead.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to fucking help,” Flynn replied, his voice rising.

“So what, I can owe you?” Wyatt retorted. “You never give something for nothing, Flynn, you and I both know that, I’m not going to be in your debt.”

Flynn made a scathing noise in the back of his throat. “I’m not—oh, it would be so much easier for me if I let you alone, trust me.”

“Then leave me the fuck alone.”

“Fat chance of that, not when you obviously—”

“I’m not—”

“I’m not letting someone I care about do this to themselves,” Flynn hissed at him.

It was like getting stabbed, in a way. Flynn? Cared about him?

“You’re broken, I’m broken, Lucy’s broken, we’re all broken,” Flynn told him. “I’m not letting either of you go another minute thinking that gives you the right to destroy yourselves.”

Flynn was comparing him to Lucy. But Flynn loved Lucy, was in love with her. Did that mean—

“I don’t know how,” Wyatt admitted. “I don’t know how to do this.” What ‘this’ was, whether it was men or being a man or missions or this life or life in general he didn’t know. Maybe it was all of them.

And maybe he’d given too much away, maybe something in his voice had cracked, showing what was underneath, because Flynn’s expression gentled and he took a step towards Wyatt, his hand coming up to gently trace his jaw. Wyatt flinched, not knowing whether to push into the touch or turn away. “It’s okay.”

That was the same thing that Lucy had said, in that same tone, that patient, soft tone that made Wyatt want to just fall apart inside.

“You’re okay, you know that, don’t you?” Flynn asked. He took a small step closer. His fingertips trailed down Wyatt’s chest towards his waist. Wyatt couldn’t suppress the shiver of pleasure that went through him. “This is okay.”

“I can’t,” Wyatt choked out. Fantasies and his own hand, that was fine, don’t ask and don’t tell, as long as nobody knows about the secret then the secret isn’t real but once you act on it, once they _know…_

Flynn tightened his hand around Wyatt’s chin and forced him still. “You don’t have anything to feel ashamed about. You can go ahead and let this wither inside of you and poison you for the rest of your life if you want but there’s another option. You can let it grow the way it’s supposed to. You’re allowed to want this, you’re allowed to just be.”

To just be. To just be who he was.

Maybe, maybe he could but he couldn’t act on it, he could ask for it and he could take but he couldn’t give, not yet, not just yet.

Wyatt swallowed hard. “You—you have to—”

“I have to what?” Flynn’s voice and eyes gentled again, his hand moving to cup the side of Wyatt’s face.

They were so alike, he’d known that almost since the beginning, and he wanted, he wanted so bad but he couldn’t ask, that wasn’t allowed, but he could take.

“You have to do it. I don’t—” Know how?

Asking Flynn to take on another sin didn’t seem to faze him. In fact his voice stayed gentle, as if this was something precious. “If you want me to be the one to start this,” Flynn told him, “I can do that.”

Wyatt nodded, eyes closing because this was all too much, and then Flynn was kissing him—gently, much more gently than Wyatt expected, and he couldn’t take that right now so he kissed back angrily, savagely, until Flynn snarled against his lips and pressed in until it felt like war.

Wyatt knew war, he could handle war.

“You’re a masochistic son of a bitch, you know that?” Flynn told him, hands everywhere, bruising, mouth taking, claiming.

Wyatt just whined into his mouth, feeling broken, feeling whole, hating himself a little still and wanting so badly…

Flynn grabbed Wyatt by the hips and yanked him in, pressing them flush against each other. Wyatt had to brace his hands on Flynn’s chest for balance, getting fistfuls of his shirt.

“You can have this,” Flynn whispered, his nose brushing against Wyatt’s. “You’re allowed to have this, I promise, it’s okay.”

He wanted to believe him so badly. Maybe if Flynn said it enough times, Wyatt would believe it. Maybe if Lucy…

Fuck. Lucy.

“Lucy,” Wyatt blurted out. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, help Flynn cheat on her. “We can’t—Lucy—”

“If Lucy were here,” Flynn said, his voice solemn, “She’d join in.”

Wyatt could feel his jaw drop. The face he was making must have been amusing, because Flynn chuckled, the sound making Wyatt’s spine melt.

“She wants both of us, you know,” Flynn told him. “She told me.”

Wyatt couldn’t even begin to untangle that statement. “And you—”

Flynn moved his hands lower to cup Wyatt’s ass, sliding a thigh in between his. Wyatt’s hips jerked reflexively, savoring the pressure, and felt an answering hardness. He moaned helplessly, swiveling his hips experimentally, feeling the evidence of Flynn wanting him.

“Is that enough answer for you?” Flynn asked, his voice lower and rougher than Wyatt had ever heard it.

“Asshole,” Wyatt growled, and kissed him.

It was nothing like the gentle kisses he’d shared with Lucy. This was kissing as war, teeth rattling and jaws aching and lips becoming slick with spit.

He shoved at Flynn, pushing him backwards so hard Flynn slammed his hip into the med bed. He growled at Wyatt, but before he could do anything, Wyatt yanked at his pants, trying to get them undone. He was messy and uncoordinated but damn it, if he was set on this course then he was damn well going to get what he wanted.

Flynn grabbed his wrists and spun Wyatt around, slamming him into the med bed face first and bending him over it. Wyatt bit down hard on his lip to hold in his moan. He really, really liked being manhandled, apparently.

Wyatt tried to buck Flynn off, to get the upper hand again, but Flynn put his full weight on him and slid his hand around to the front of Wyatt’s pants, squeezing him through the denim. Wyatt groaned, his body going pliant.

“Is this what you wanted?” Flynn asked, quickly undoing the button and zipper for Wyatt’s jeans.

Wyatt felt like he was shaking so hard he was going to come apart. He dug his nails into Flynn’s arms, wanting to scratch him up, make him yelp.

Flynn yanked him upwards and Wyatt sagged back against him, his head falling back onto Flynn’s shoulder as Flynn finally got his hand around Wyatt’s erection. “Talk to me, Logan,” Flynn told him. He squeezed the base and Logan moaned. “What do you want?”

“Anything.” Wyatt could barely even think anymore. “What you, whatever you—want, that’s what I, anything, that’s—”

Flynn’s hand started stroking him and Wyatt’s knees nearly buckled. “I want quite a lot of things,” he told him, mouth right at Wyatt’s ear, “But we’ll start with this.”

Wyatt clamped his lips shut, breathing hard through his nose, trying to keep quiet, trying not to let too many noises slip out. He ground back against Flynn, felt the other man grind back, settle into the curve of Wyatt’s ass. He could feel how hard Flynn was, and a sudden spike of _want_ shot through him, making him grind back harder. He kind of wanted that fullness that he could feel now, wanted it to get even more against him, inside him—

The thought took him by surprise and his hips jerked violently. Did he want that?

“That’s it,” Flynn growled encouragingly. He twisted his wrist and ohhh, oh fuck, Wyatt wasn’t going to last much longer. He moaned, putting his full weight on Flynn, letting Flynn rut against him as he stroked him harder, faster. Fuck, it felt so good, so good, fuck, yes, _fuck, yes—_

And then Flynn was stepping away, so quickly that Wyatt nearly fell over. He was about to ask what the hell, when Flynn spun him around, did up his pants, and shoved his shirt at him.

Wyatt opened his mouth to demand that hell no, they were finishing this, when Christopher walked in.

Ohhhhh shit.

Thank God that Flynn had apparently heard her approaching, because Wyatt was way too lost in the moment. If she’d walked in…

Well, she’d have been just in time for the grand finale.

Flynn, the bastard, looked cool as a cucumber, no flushed face or a hair of out place. Wyatt could feel his chest heaving and knew that he probably looked like an idiot.

At least Christopher’s arrival had taken care of his erection.

“I heard that you weren’t using your sling,” Christopher said.

“I patched him up,” Flynn said. “He’s all good now.”

“You’d better stay that way,” Christopher warned him. “Let me see your stitches and make sure you haven’t popped them.”

Wyatt shot Flynn a panicked look but what was he supposed to do? He set the shirt aside and let Christopher examine him.

“My work here is done then, I suppose,” Flynn said, suddenly sounding a lot more unsure than he had two minutes ago. “I’ll see you both later.”

He walked quickly out of the room, avoiding Wyatt’s attempts to catch his eye.

Well, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm evil.


	14. Chapter 14

Lucy was having a pretty good day until Flynn strode in, looking like a deer in headlights.

She’d been lounging on her bunk, going over some files, but sat up at once when she saw his face. “What’s wrong?”

Flynn halted. Paused. Opened his mouth, shut it again.

Lucy’s stomach plummeted. Flynn had never looked this lost and panicked before. Something had to have gone terribly wrong. “Is it the Lifeboat? Rittenhouse?” Don’t say they’d lost someone else, don’t say it was about him or Wyatt, please, she couldn’t…

“It’s about Logan.”

Lucy stood up. “What happened.” Had his injury gotten infected? Had he snuck out again?

They hadn’t talked, really, although she knew that they needed to. Flynn had told her that Wyatt was still in love with her, and Lucy wanted, craved, finally having Wyatt back in her life. But they would have to be careful about this. She still wasn’t sure about Wyatt’s feelings towards Flynn, and she was terrified that a misstep would send them all hurtling back to the starting line. She had no idea how to start the conversation, so she just… hadn’t.

She’d discussed it with Flynn, though. They were going to find a good time, approach Wyatt carefully, gently suggest the idea to him—if only she could figure out when and how. Probably the next time the rotation had it that all three of them would be away on a mission together.

Flynn shuffled a little, looking… contrite? “I might have—I was helping Logan with his injury, he’d busted the bandage again. Things got a little heated.”

Oh, no. “Garcia, what did you say.”

“It wasn’t what I said.” Flynn huffed. “It was what we did. I might have… sort of given him… we almost sort of had sex.”

“You what?” Lucy could hear herself shrieking and quickly lowered her voice. “How do you even ‘almost sort of’ have sex!?”

“Well I got my hand down his pants but then Agent Christopher waltzed in,” Flynn hissed.

“You—Garcia!”

“He wanted it!” Flynn protested. “Although he wouldn’t do anything until I told him you’d be okay with it. In case you were wondering.”

“That’s—” That was rather sweet actually and very in character for Wyatt. Lucy shook her head. “That’s not the point, the point is I thought you were going to think about this and we were going to approach him together! Not give him a hand job in the med room!”

“It wasn’t like I planned it!” Flynn hissed. “You didn’t see him, Lucy, he was—fuck, he was, I couldn’t leave him like that.”

Flynn’s voice was raw, cracking, and Lucy couldn’t begin to imagine what Wyatt must have been like in that moment for Flynn to sound like that. Her knees gave out and she sank back down onto the bed, lying back and covering her hands with her face. “Garcia, he’s just figuring out he’s bi, you go from zero to sixty he’s going to freak out!”

“He’s Delta Force, I’m sure he’s handled much more stressful situations.”

“Because your track record for getting along together is so stellar.”

Flynn collapsed onto the bed next to her, heedless of the files he was crinkling. “Did I just ruin everything?”

He looked so torn, so forlorn, that Lucy couldn’t find it in herself to stay mad at him. Not when he looked up at her with those soft eyes and that devastated expression on his face.

She propped herself up on her elbow so that she leaned over him. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t want to think so. But when Wyatt and I talked… he was so scared of this. It was so new to him. I can’t—I don’t know what he’s thinking, anymore. And that scares me. That I can’t tell. I want to be able to say that this is just a setback but I really don’t know.”

She hoped it was just a setback. If Wyatt shunned Flynn—shunned both of them—she thought she’d be sick, just at the thought of it. Her stomach heaved.

No, she couldn’t lose Wyatt. Not now. Not after she’d learned that he still loved her. Not when she was so close to her goal.

“Do you want this?” She asked. “With him?”

Flynn turned and kissed the palm of her hand. “I wasn’t sure,” he admitted. “I knew I could be attracted to him, and I knew that you loved him and I wanted to give you what you wanted and if that meant sharing you, I was happy to do that. But just now…” He cleared his throat. “I realized that I might have… started caring for him without realizing it.” He smiled up at her. “Not at all how I knew with you. I knew the moment I met you. This sort of snuck up on me.”

“Mmm, in what way?” She couldn’t stop touching him. Now that they’d admitted how they felt, it was like she just couldn’t stop. She needed him more than before.

Flynn sighed. “I realized that… I wanted to protect him. The same way that I want to protect you. I can’t lose you, Lucy. And—I should’ve known when I had him in the car patching him up, the way I… there was so much blood, Lucy.” He shook a little, and Lucy realized that it was finally sinking in for him, a kind of delayed reaction. “He was shaking and bloody and I should’ve realized then, when I would’ve done anything, I refused to even think that he’d die… but I didn’t. I realized today.”

Lucy threaded their fingers together. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Having to worry about two people at once?” Flynn chuckled. “Yes. I was nervous enough about you and he’s twice as danger prone.”

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Lucy snorted. “You’re worse than he is.”

“I’m afraid you’ve gotten rather the short end of the stick then,” Flynn told her.

Lucy shook her head, her heart swelling up in her chest. “No. No, not at all.”

She couldn’t escape that little whisper of fear in the back of her mind, though, the one that told her this had ruined everything. That Wyatt would shun them, abandon them both and retreat to the safety of what he knew and was comfortable with. Flynn’s impulsiveness had landed them all in trouble before.

But she had to have faith. Just this one last time. She’d told Flynn how she felt and she hadn’t lost him. Maybe if she held out just a little longer, had just a little more hope, she’d get one more miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I KNOW I'M GIVING SO MANY CLIFFHANGERS if it's any consolation the threesome sex scene is about 10k words at this point so? You get a big reward for your patience?


	15. Chapter 15

It was official.

Wyatt was freaking out.

He paced back and forth in the med room. The med room, where just half an hour ago—fuck. Ohhh fuck.

He hadn’t just—there’d been no talking, nothing really, just flinging himself at Flynn like, what, some randy cheerleader. Jesus Christ, the guy must be telling Lucy right now all about how desperate Wyatt was for it. Not that he thought Flynn thought less of him—did he?

What the hell was wrong with him? Was he incapable of talking about things like an adult now? When he’d gotten together with Lucy the first time he’d spent all day thinking about what to say, he’d planned it out carefully, and he’d given her a speech that explained exactly how he felt.

How the hell was he unable to do that this time?

God, he was an idiot. He’d probably ruined everything. Now Flynn was going to think that Wyatt was just into him for the sex—which, was he? In it just for the sex? Or was it something more?

Dammit, he couldn’t even begin to think about this right now. He was going in circles, literally, pacing up and down the med room.

It had felt so good, too, having Flynn’s deep voice in his ear, his hands on him, that hard length pressed up against him from behind. Wyatt shivered at the memory, at the thought of that maybe slipping inside him…

He had to press down between his legs as his still-frustrated dick gave a little jump of acknowledgment. He did not need lust muddling up his head even further right now.

What was he supposed to do now? Go to Lucy and say hey, I’m sorry but I kind of let your boyfriend stick his hand down my pants? What would she even say to that? Flynn had said that she’d join in if she was there with them, that she wanted this, but Wyatt had no idea if that was true. He didn’t think Flynn was lying (which led him to realize that he could now tell when Flynn was lying) but what the hell did it mean? Lucy loving both of them? Could one person have enough love in them for that?

If that was what it took to have Lucy though, then he’d do it. He’d share her, take only a scrap of her, anything she’d offer him, something being better than nothing.

As for Flynn…

Did Flynn, have feelings? For Wyatt? Was that why—he’d said the things that he’d said?

_It’s okay. You’re allowed to want this._

He wanted to believe that. He needed to believe that. He couldn’t not believe it, because if he didn’t he was set up for a life of hating himself even more than before and already it felt like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

Wyatt couldn’t think like this. He wanted to get out, wanted fresh air, but after the stunt he’d pulled to save Jess, the bunker was on full lockdown.

The car… saving Jess… when he’d been shot, Flynn had patched him up in the backseat. He’d practically been in the guy’s lap, Flynn’s arms around him. He’d felt warm, then, warm and safe, even as the pain had ricocheted through his body with each jostle of the car. For once, all of Flynn’s protective instincts had been focused solely on Wyatt, and he liked it. He liked knowing that someone was so completely focused on him and on protecting him.

He especially liked that someone being Flynn.

All his life, he’d been the protector. Even in Delta Force, where everybody was protecting each other, it was all teamwork. He’d never before had the sense of an absolute protector, someone who would fling themselves into the fire for him. Flynn was that kind of person, he’d seen it with Flynn’s mission for his dead wife and child, seen it in how Flynn took care of Lucy.

He kind of liked the idea of that.

Okay. Okay, nothing was going to get sorted just pacing like this. He couldn’t keep himself in an echo chamber any longer.

Lucy, he had figured out. He loved her, and he wanted to be with her, any way she’d let him.

That just left Flynn.

…fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might... be persuaded... to put up a second chapter today...


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My lovely, darling readers, who've been with me since the beginning and writing wonderful reviews, all begged for a second chapter today and so here it is. You've all been so wonderful and encouraging, I can't thank you enough. I apologize, it's another cliffhanger, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I promise it's not a train.

Flynn quickly set up the coffee maker. As usual, he was the first one up in the morning. He’d lingered by Wyatt’s bedside for a moment, tempted to wake him up, but had thought better of it. Flynn had already done enough damage.

It didn’t take a genius to notice how Wyatt had been avoiding him all day after their little… incident in the med room. Lucy had tried to stay calm, but Flynn had seen the panic in her eyes, the fear that she couldn’t quite shake off. After so long holding herself back, convinced that all she loved would be taken from her, it made Flynn’s heart ache to think that he might be the reason she’d lost Wyatt yet again.

Perhaps he should have just removed himself from the equation. Lucy wouldn’t have liked it but a part of him still couldn’t believe that she was happy with Flynn, that Flynn could give her even half of what she needed. She should be with Wyatt, and Wyatt should be with her. They were happy before, without him. They could be happy again.

He’d go to Wyatt first, explain things. Lucy could rant and rail all she wanted but if they presented a united front she’d have to give in and accept that this was happening. She’d forget about her love for him in time. And Wyatt would make her happier than Flynn ever could, and vice versa.

What kind of partner would he be to Wyatt, anyway? It felt like everything he said was the wrong thing. They snapped at each other, hackles constantly raised.

If only he could get rid of the sensation of Wyatt pressed up against him, of grinding up against him, of feeling the heavy, stiff weight of his erection and seeing Wyatt’s eyes hooded and glazed, wanting, the way his voice had gone rough when he’d gotten up the courage to ask for what he wanted. Flynn feared that he could no more erase the memory of Wyatt’s body than he could erase the memory of Lucy’s, lithe and soft against his, her soft stomach and the way her breasts fit into the palm of his hand, the little noises she made in the back of her throat as she came.

No, he couldn’t erase either of them, now.

But no. He had been selfish long enough. God knew he still had a lot to make up for, the murders he’d committed, the people he’d hurt, the lives he’d messed with. He was the reason that Amy no longer existed, although Lucy had never once blamed him for it. He was the reason for so many things. He’d gotten Rufus and Wyatt both shot, tried to have them murdered by Holmes, and kidnapped Lucy. Twice.

He’d spend the rest of his life atoning for it, but he’d already taken more than he deserved. He should just let them have each other, give for a turn instead of just taking and taking all the time.

After all, he’d known that when he started this there was only one way the story was going to end for him. He played the villain because he had to, and he had accepted what it would mean. He had to remember that and accept it now. People like him, who had done what he had done, didn’t get or deserve happy endings.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind him. That had to be Wyatt, nobody else in this bunker was so loud. Flynn turned to face him.

Wyatt looked like a wreck. There were circles under his eyes, and his hair was sticking up all over the place.

“Didn’t get much sleep, I take it,” Flynn said.

Wyatt shook his head. Then he paused, looking at Flynn like… like Flynn held the answer to something. Flynn didn’t know what to do with that. “You didn’t say anything.”

For a moment, Flynn was confused, but then Wyatt added, “this morning,” and he understood. Wyatt had been awake when Flynn had paused by his bedside.

“I didn’t think you would want me to,” Flynn admitted.

Wyatt shuffled his feet, looking down at the ground. “Look. I’m in love with Lucy. I get that part. That part makes sense. It’s you I can’t figure out.”

“Okay,” Flynn said slowly.

Wyatt took a deep breath. “So, we need to talk.”


	17. Chapter 17

Wyatt swallowed hard, trying to decipher Flynn’s expression. The guy looked like he was bracing himself for something. For what?

“I don’t understand,” Wyatt blurted out. “I’m—you know me. You’ve seen me. Why me?”

“I’m not sure that I follow,” Flynn said, sounding confused.

Wyatt gestured helplessly. “You could have any guy that you wanted. If you were really wanting to bring another guy into this. I get that we’re all kind of stuck in this bunker here but there’s people you could pick up on a mission, you and Lucy.”

“Do you doubt Lucy’s feelings for you?”

Wyatt shrugged. He didn’t know. He loved her, loved her so much it felt like he was going to come apart at the seams, his body unable to hold it all in anymore. But did she love him? She had, once, or so she’d seemed to say. Did she still feel that way?

Flynn shook his head. “Hey. None of that.”

The quiet ferocity in his voice was startling. Flynn reached out, taking Wyatt’s arm. “She loves you, all right? It’s been killing her to watch you go after Jess. And I understand. You had to try and make it work. You owed it to her. But I know that your heart wasn’t with her anymore. Lucy’s had enough losses, wouldn’t you agree?”

Wyatt nodded. Yes. Lucy had experienced more than enough loss in her life.

Flynn looked him directly in the eyes. “Then don’t sell yourself short. She does love you. She’ll take you back the moment you ask her.”

“I don’t think you’ve seen the way that she looks at you,” Wyatt said.

“She looks at both of us,” Flynn replied.

At first, Wyatt hadn’t been able to wrap his head around the idea of Lucy being in love with two people equally. But now that he was standing there, craving Lucy but also looking up at Flynn, drinking in the strange look in his eyes that was, somehow, both gentle and intense, craving more of that too… Wyatt thought he could begin to understand.

He swallowed again. “So, uh, what about you.”

“What about me?”

Wyatt tried to laugh, but it got kind of stuck in his throat. “C’mon. You and I both know you don’t like me.” The words came out more bitter than he had intended. “Not that I’ve made you feel welcome here or anything.”

Flynn sighed. “What are you trying to say, Wyatt?”

That surprised him. He didn’t think that Flynn had ever called him by his first name. It felt… really nice, actually. Like Flynn actually cared instead of using his last name like some kind of insult, some way to keep distance between them.

“I’m…” Wyatt searched for words. “I’m trying to say, that I need to see where we stand. You and me. Because you and Lucy, you’re good. Me and Lucy, I think we’ll be good. Or that we can be again. But us… this…” He gestured between them. “I need to figure this out. To see if the two of us could work. Because there are going to be times when Lucy isn’t with us, on missions, or something, and if we can only work with her there as some kind of—I don’t know—crutch or something, that’s not fair to her and we’ll only end up delaying the inevitable blow up.”

Flynn nodded. “I agree.” His hand flexed, Wyatt thought maybe instinctively, around Wyatt’s arm. “I don’t want to hurt her.” He paused. “And I suppose if we could avoid getting you hurt as well that would be nice. Any more than you already have, anyway.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes. “You say the sweetest things.”

Flynn smiled at him, quick and dirty. Then he grew serious again. “You’re allowed to have this. You have to know that. And I’m not choosing you because you’re the only one around.”

“But I’m me.”

“Exactly.”

He didn’t get it. He was… all battered and bruised, damaged goods, still kind of hating himself for what he wanted and waking up with nightmares half the time and he still had everybody’s voices in his head, telling him how to behave, what to say, drowning him and yet Flynn was looking at him—the way that he looked at Lucy. With that soft, warm light in his eyes.

Like Wyatt was more than good enough, just as he was.

But how could that be true? How could that possibly be true when Wyatt was—was broken and haunted and still woke up once a month shaking and running into the bathroom, flicking on the light, checking for ghosts that weren’t there—

“Look, man, you really—you don’t have to lie to me. We should see where we are, physically—”

“Physically?” Flynn looked like he wanted to bang his head against the wall. Or maybe bang Wyatt’s head against the wall instead. “Has nothing of what I’ve said been getting through to you?”

“I’m me!” Wyatt said, his voice rising. “I’m damaged goods—”

“We’re all damaged goods, Wyatt—”

“Christ, Lucy believed in you almost from the beginning and I gave you nothing but shit—”

“I gave you all shit,” Flynn said, his voice rising as well now, lightning flashing in his dark eyes.

“I’m not worth all this trouble!”

“Of course you are!”

“And why would you think that?”

“Because I love you, you idiot!”

Wyatt stared at Flynn, realizing they were yelling, realizing they were only standing an inch or two apart.

Realizing what Flynn had just said.

Flynn grabbed Wyatt’s shoulders, the same way he would grab Lucy’s. “When are you going to understand? Lucy loves you, and I love you, because you’re enough just as you are. We don’t care that you have shit to work out and we don’t care that this is new to you. Neither of us are experts either. We just want you, because you’re you, and we love that.

“You don’t have to say it back. You don’t even have to feel it back. But you’re not allowed to go into this thinking you’re second-rate.”

Wyatt couldn’t help himself. He moved forward, grabbing Flynn by the lapels of that damn jacket and dragging him in, smashing their mouths together.

There was a moment where Flynn did a very good impression of a statue, and Wyatt thought that maybe he’d miscalculated this entire thing and he should probably just go and die in a corner somewhere.

But then Flynn’s hands slid down to grip his hips tightly, enough to leave bruises, and Flynn was crowding him back against the counter. The counter’s edge dug painfully into Wyatt’s back but he wasn’t going to move for anything, not when he was finally getting to shut Garcia Flynn up good and proper.

He pulled back, panting. “If I’d known there was a surefire way to shut you up, I’d’ve done it months ago.”

Flynn looked like he had a response to that, and a sarcastic one at that, but Wyatt dove back in before he could say whatever it was, snaking his tongue right back into Flynn’s mouth and relishing the way Flynn pushed back into him. For a few seconds it was glorious, all roaming hands and hot, slick mouths.

Then Flynn pulled back, looking kind of like someone had clocked him in the back of the head.

“…you said you needed to work this out,” Flynn said slowly. “To see if you and I could work.”

“…right?”

“Sorry, I thought that meant—” Flynn cleared his throat. “Talking. Um. Time.”

“Oh.” Wyatt had clearly misread the situation. “Well, we could just…” He pulled away, pushing past Flynn and trying to slip away back out of the room.

“Whoa, whoa, no, wait, hold on, I didn’t say stop,” Flynn said, grabbing him and yanking him back in.

“I want to be with you,” Wyatt told him, done with the misunderstandings and doubts. “Just you. To see if we can.” He paused. “And by ‘be with’ I mean sexually.”

“Yes, I think I’ve got that part now,” Flynn said dryly.

“Oh, do you?” Wyatt responded. “Because I can make you a PowerPoint presentation if you want—”

Flynn growled and spun Wyatt around, shoving him back against the counter. Wyatt flailed, taken by surprise, his hand knocking into the open coffee ground tin and sending it crashing to the floor, coffee flying everywhere. “Want a PowerPoint presentation on how this…” Flynn gestured between the two of them, “Works? Need a birds and birds talk?”

“I think I liked you better when you couldn’t talk,” Wyatt replied, hopping up onto the counter.

“You sure? You seemed to like all the things I was saying yesterday…”

Wyatt grabbed him, feeling his face heat up and knowing he was blushing. “Oh my God, shut up.”

Flynn gave him a feral grin, one that made Wyatt shiver and heat pool low in his gut.

“Make me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. I ended the chapter that way. Feel free to yell at me.


	18. Chapter 18

For a moment Wyatt looked like he’d been splashed with freezing water, his eyes wide and mouth open. Then Flynn saw a flash of determination and Wyatt wrapped his legs around Flynn’s waist, dragging their mouths together again.

Flynn shoved the coffee maker aside, sending it falling into the sink with a worrying clatter, halfway-made coffee splattering everywhere. He really didn’t care—he could brace his hands on the counter properly now, leveraging himself up to get back the height advantage on Wyatt and press him back into the cupboard.

Wyatt’s head banged against the cupboard and he groaned, annoyed, pushing at Flynn until he was almost falling off the counter.

If it was Lucy, Flynn could’ve just slid his hands underneath her thighs and lifted her no problem. But Wyatt was definitely a lot heavier than Lucy and when Flynn tried to grab him they both ended up stumbling. Flynn growled, grabbing Wyatt’s wrists and pinning him back against the refrigerator.

“I always wondered if you’d be feisty,” he told him, if only to see the flash of defiance that crossed Wyatt’s face.

“Buddy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Wyatt promised him.

He hooked his ankle around Flynn’s leg, spinning him. Flynn didn’t land quite back against the fridge but against the counter where the dish rack was. He threw a hand back to brace himself and felt the dish rack slide into the sink, dishes spilling out and a few falling onto the floor, crashing and breaking.

Both of them looked down at the mess for a moment.

“Maybe we should move this to the couch,” Wyatt suggested.

“I’m not the one who couldn’t execute a proper judo move.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“I thought that was the plan?”

Wyatt looked like he was going to say something else, but Flynn had figured out a brilliant way to shut him up by sliding his hand down Wyatt’s pants. Wyatt made a choked noise and latched his mouth onto Flynn’s neck, biting down hard.

Flynn’s hips jerked at the pleasure-pain of it. He had liked the pliant Wyatt from earlier, but he liked this defiant Wyatt just as much.

He walked Wyatt backwards, trying to get him back onto the couch. He tripped over one of the chairs and kicked it out of the way, a little too hard it turned out as the chair flew into the concrete wall and gave a sickening cracking noise, one of the wooden legs crumpling.

“That really should not be hot,” Wyatt mumbled against Flynn’s neck, almost as if he was irritated that Flynn was turning him on.

“You don’t have to sound like this is a chore,” Flynn replied, shoving him back.

Wyatt fell back onto the couch, and Flynn couldn’t help a predatory smile at the way Wyatt’s eyes were blown wide, his jaw slack. He kept staring as Flynn quickly yanked off his shirt, just the soft t-shirt that he wore for sleep.

Flynn smirked. He never got tired of that look on Lucy’s face, and he wasn’t going to get tired of it on Wyatt’s, either.

“Like what you see?”

Wyatt swallowed, dragging his gaze up from Flynn’s chest to his face. “Shit.”

Looked like that whole bi crisis thing had been resolved then. Flynn looked pointedly at Wyatt’s shirt. “I wasn’t aware this was a one-man show.”

Wyatt scrambled to sit up, yanking his shirt up and over his head. Flynn hummed in appreciation. Wyatt stripped off his clothes like he had something to hide, though—they’d have to fix that. Lucy could help.

Seeing that Wyatt was starting to get nervous again, Flynn kissed him, forcing him to slow it down a little. “Which do you want?” he asked, skimming his hands over Wyatt’s body, soothing him. “Hmm?”

Wyatt blew out a huff through his nose. “I want—earlier, when—I saw you and Lucy.”

Flynn paused. “Saw us doing what?”

Wyatt was—Wyatt was _blushing_. “The other day, in the shower. You didn’t put a chair in front of the door.”

Ah. Flynn had thought he’d heard something but when there hadn’t come any yelp of surprise, he’d assumed he’d just imagined it. He smirked. “Thought you’d get a little show, did you?”

“What, no, I didn’t… mean to…” Wyatt looked horribly embarrassed, so Flynn kissed his way slowly along Wyatt’s neck and shoulder. “I saw, and I… I wanted…”

Flynn hummed encouragingly, skimming his fingertips up and down Wyatt’s sides reassuringly.

“What you were, doing to her,” Wyatt said in a rush. “That’s what I wanted. What I want.”

Flynn pulled back to look at the bruise he’d left at the base of Wyatt’s neck. Nice. If he gave Lucy a matching one…

Oh, he was definitely starting to see the appeal of this whole thing.

He looked Wyatt in the eye, continuing to run his hands up and down Wyatt's sides, keeping him calm and soothed. “If that’s what you want,” he told him. “We can do that.”

Wyatt nodded, some of that fire coming back into his eyes, accepting a challenge. “Yes.”

Flynn turned him around, trying to be gentle with him, to remember that this was a first time, that it paid to be patient. “It’ll be easier this way.”

Wyatt nodded, clearly determined now that he’d set himself a goal. Such a soldier. It was endearing, actually.

Flynn grabbed a blanket that someone had left on the couch and draped it so that it was falling onto the floor, providing Wyatt’s knees with some cushioning. Flynn rubbed up and down Wyatt’s back, sort of like the massage from yesterday (was it only yesterday?), kissing along his spine.

Wyatt relaxed in increments, pushing back into Flynn’s touches. Flynn carefully moved his hands farther and farther down, until he could brush his fingers against his entrance.

“Just keep relaxing,” Flynn told him. He remembered the position that he and Lucy had been in that day in the shower and draped himself over Wyatt, giving him skin on skin contact everywhere he could, comforting him with it.

Wyatt huffed out a short laugh. “Now I know how the girl feels.”

Flynn realized something belatedly. Lube.

“Fuck.” He stood up and walked back over to the kitchen, grabbing the Vaseline from the first aid kit. He kind of spilled the first aid kit contents everywhere in the process, but whatever, there were already broken dishes and coffee grounds on the floor. They’d clean it up later.

“Real smooth, Flynn,” Wyatt laughed as Flynn went back over to him.

Flynn slicked up his fingers and took advantage of Wyatt’s relaxation from the laugh, petting his lower back with his free hand while he slid just the tip of his finger inside with the other.

Wyatt immediately tensed up and Flynn rubbed his free hand up and down Wyatt’s back. “Just relax, you’re good.”

After a moment, Wyatt relaxed again. Flynn slowly worked his finger in and out, carefully working it in deeper as Wyatt opened up for him bit by bit.

“This is… weird,” Wyatt admitted, laughing a little. “But kind of…”

Flynn found the spot he was looking for, and Wyatt’s body went taut, his back arching. He grabbed fistfuls of the blanket, his knuckles going white. “Ohhhh shit.”

Flynn couldn’t resist a triumphant grin. “In case you were wondering why people like this.”

“Okay, yeah, feel free to, uh, touch there as much as you… oh fuck,” Wyatt swore, body jerking again.

Flynn added a second finger, careful not to speed up too much. It was hard not to when Wyatt was moaning like that. Quiet, he was not—something he definitely had in common with Lucy—and Flynn wanted to just drive into him but held himself back until Wyatt was actively pushing back, asking for more.

“You have to be quiet,” Flynn warned him, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. Wyatt bit down on the blanket, moaning around that instead. Flynn added a third finger, wanted to be certain, wanting to be sure before he moved onto the next stage.

“You good?” Flynn asked.

Wyatt nodded, twisting back, trying to get more. “Close, I think I’m—”

“It’s okay.” This would be easier if Wyatt had already come and loosened up as much as he could. “You can let go.”

Wyatt groaned beautifully, his body seizing up. Flynn pet him through it, running his hand through Wyatt’s hair, feeling like he was going to die if he didn’t get some relief soon.

Wyatt sat up, blushing again. “I might have. Uh. Just ripped the blanket.”

Flynn laughed, taking him by the hand and pulling him up. Fuck, there were stains on the blanket now and it was definitely ripped in a couple of places. “Should’ve known you’d be a little rough.”

Wyatt was loose and pliant post-orgasm, but he still gave Flynn a shit eating grin as he draped his arms over his shoulders. “What, can’t handle it?”

Post-orgasm Wyatt was apparently also a tease, too, because he had no problem rubbing up against Flynn, reminding Flynn had he’d had precious little attention throughout this whole thing. “You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Flynn told him, pressing their mouths together again and sucking Wyatt’s tongue into his mouth.

Wyatt pushed him back towards the kitchen table, shoving a bunch of Jiya’s papers out of the way. “Here, this’ll—this should be easier.”

“On who, me or your knees?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“No, I’m pretty sure—”

“Do not. Finish that sentence. If you want me to let you fuck me.”

Oh, Flynn could not wait to get Lucy in on this. “Whatever you say,” he murmured, letting Wyatt have this little victory so that Flynn could bend him over the table, all but plastering himself to Wyatt as he carefully spread Wyatt’s legs and lined himself up.

Wyatt’s fingers dug into the wood of the table as Flynn pushed in, as slowly as he could. It was so tempting to just thrust in, especially after going roughly at it with Lucy for so long, Lucy who took charge and insisted she wouldn’t break and would climb all over him. But this was new for Wyatt, and he had to be careful.

He couldn’t resist biting hard at the back of Wyatt’s shoulder, though, leaving a perfect row of teeth marks to lick at. Wyatt moaned, bucking back into him, helping him slide in another inch.

“You’re good,” Flynn told him, his voice sounding destroyed, carefully petting him through it. “Just like that.”

“S’good,” Wyatt slurred, sounding a little drunk. “Full.”

Wyatt Logan, reduced to one-word sentences. Flynn could get used to this. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Wyatt twisted so that he could look over his shoulder and glare at Flynn. “I was ready days ago, Flynn, you gonna do something about it or what?”

“With an invitation like that,” Flynn replied, sliding part of the way back out and then rocking in again.

He kept his thrusts shallow at first, but Wyatt had that determined gleam in his eye and was really, really not having it. He kept shoving himself back at Flynn, digging his nails into the wood to give himself leverage—and when Flynn got the angle right, there was absolutely no stopping Wyatt. He scratched the damn table so hard he left marks, demanding that Flynn give him more, harder.

“Couple of demanding divas, that’s what I’ve landed myself with,” Flynn grunted, biting down lightly on the shell of Wyatt’s ear.

“That—doesn’t sound—like a complaint,” Wyatt gasped out, reaching back to grab at Flynn. “M’close, I—”

Thank God, because Flynn didn’t know how much longer he was going to last, either. He reached down between Wyatt’s legs, setting a fast pace to match his own, erratic thrusts. Wyatt slapped his own hand over his mouth, biting down hard on it to keep some noises to himself as he came, smearing the concrete floor and definitely some of Jiya’s papers.

The way he clenched around Flynn as he came was too damn much. Flynn all but fell onto Wyatt, shuddering out his own release.

They lay there for a minute, panting, and then Wyatt raised his head. “Flynn, get off, I can’t breathe.” Then, a moment later, “Oh, shit!”

Wyatt jerked back, his arms windmilling, and his elbow smashed right into Flynn’s eye. “Ow, Jesus fuck, Wyatt, what—”

Wyatt gestured at the mess around them.

“Ah.”

There was spilled coffee all over the floor. The coffee maker was tipped on its side in the sink, coffee splashed onto the counter. Plates were broken on the floor and in the sink. There was a chair with a broken leg, Jiya’s papers were everywhere and some were definitely stained, and the blanket was stained and ripped in several places.

Also…

“Damn it, Wyatt, your stitches.”

Wyatt started down at himself, as if he was just now noticing that he was bleeding through his bandage. “Oh, yeah.”

“Honestly, did the military not teach you how to avoid getting shot?” Flynn snapped, pulling his hand away from his eye to start looking at Wyatt’s wound.

Wyatt just grinned at him. “What,” Flynn grumbled, peeling the bandage back and oh, yeah, definitely a couple stitches popped. Fuck, why didn’t he think of that earlier?

“Your bitching,” Wyatt said proudly. “I figured it out. It means you care.”

Flynn stared at him for a moment, then said slowly, “I’m never going to get away with anything ever again, am I.”

Wyatt shook his head, still grinning. “Nope.” Then he frowned. “Also, your eye is turning purple.”

“…Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this sex scene is the longest one so far, haha. Given that it’s Wyatt’s first time, I thought it was important that time was taken. You can’t exactly just wham bam thank you ma’am in this case, lol.
> 
> Also goddamn these boys have bad timing. THIS IS NEITHER THE TIME NOR THE PLACE JESUS CHRIST. (I say this as if I didn’t write them into this situation.)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's after midnight so technically this counts as the next day, right?

Lucy had hoped that Wyatt and Flynn would work something out. She’d been trying not to panic, despite the way her chest felt too tight and she couldn’t seem to get enough air in. All night she had lain awake in bed, listening to Jiya’s steady, deep breaths, trying to calm her erratic heartbeat.

She couldn’t let Wyatt retreat into himself or—worse—outright flee. She had to make sure that she spoke to him, reassure him, ease him into this idea and try to undo any damage that had been done by Wyatt and Flynn’s impulsive natures and Wyatt’s own haunting past.

It wasn’t either man’s fault, really. Neither of them was good at talking or patience. It was her fault—she should have gone to Wyatt sooner, perhaps even spoken to him about it when they were in Stonewall. But she hadn’t wanted to hope or push or pry.

Besides, lying there thinking of all the things that she ‘should’ have done was only going to drive her crazier than she already was.

There had to be a way to talk to Wyatt and ease whatever panic he might be feeling. She’d risen early, writing down ideas and scratching them out, throwing them away. It had consumed her thoughts long into the night and through the early morning, where her stomach had seen fit to remind her that she needed a little something called food if she was going to make it through the day without collapsing into a crying mess.

She might collapse into a crying mess anyway but that was beside the point.

She had still been mentally trying to work something out, what to say, what to do, when she walked into the kitchen to find it an absolute mess and a half-dressed Wyatt and Flynn bickering about bandages.

“Garcia?” She asked. “Why do you have a black eye?”

Flynn and Wyatt looked at each other. Then at her. Wyatt was blushing like a fire hydrant.

“I popped my stitches,” he said, as if that was an explanation.

Lucy hadn’t said anything, just helped them to clean up the kitchen and then fix Wyatt up before Denise found out and had a fit, but she couldn’t help but think about what would lead to broken furniture (what the hell), a black eye and bloody lip for Flynn, and popped stitches for Wyatt.

It terrified her that they’d gotten into a fight. She’d hoped that, at least, they could all be calm about this, but both Flynn and Wyatt were men with tempers. She shouldn’t be so surprised that they’d ended up punching it out.

And she’d had such hope, too, hope that it would all work out.

It was just too much. She should have known that the universe would only give her part of what she needed, wanted. Just one, not the other.

But how on earth was she supposed to choose?

The next mission had Jiya, Wyatt, and Lucy. Rufus wasn’t too pleased about this, and Lucy didn’t know how to feel about it either. Every time she stepped into that machine, she was leaving her world behind. Every time she came back, she was returning to the possibility of a home that didn’t know her.

What if she came home and Flynn forgot her? What if he hated her? What if he was gone, blip, just like that, like Amy?

She feared the same things when it was Wyatt left behind. But right now, Wyatt was beside her.

 _Just be grateful you get to take one_ , she told herself.

She could barely focus during the mission, so worried about her boys. How had the fight gone? What had been said? Flynn knew just what to say to hurt a person, to get them riled up and furious, forgetting all common sense. Had he said something to poke at Wyatt’s struggle with his sexuality? Something about his failed relationship with Jessica?

Wyatt wasn’t a helpless puppy, either, much as he might act like it at times. He was blunter than Flynn, not as inclined towards sarcasm, but his barbs still landed. Had he taunted Flynn with his criminal past, with jail? Had he brought up Lorena and Iris?

It was twisting her up into knots.

As they made their way back through the Appalachian Mountains, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She let Jiya pull ahead, and spoke quietly, falling into step beside Wyatt.

“What happened?” She asked. “Between you and Flynn?”

Wyatt gave her an odd look. “He didn’t tell you?”

“There wasn’t really time, before we left.”

Wyatt looked ahead, clearing his throat. “I told him that I loved you. I knew that. And I needed to see if I… if he and I could make it work on our part. So we… tried it.”

“I see.” Perhaps the two just weren’t as compatible as she’d thought. “I do appreciate you trying. I know it’s not easy, the position I put you two in. I’m sorry if I made either of you uncomfortable.”

“What?” Wyatt stopped walking and stared at her. “Luce, what are you talking about? We had sex, it was…” Wyatt lowered his voice, glancing in the direction Jiya was walking. “It was great. I enjoyed it, he seemed to, I figured he’d told you about, given you the green light, y’know and that we’d talk about it more when we got back.”

Lucy gaped at him. “But, but, the—the chair, and the—the plates, things were broken, smashed, there was—Garcia had a black eye, for goodness’ sake.”

Wyatt looked sheepish. “Yeah, I, uh, realized the state we’d put the kitchen in and freaked out a little. Elbowed him by accident.”

“And your popped stitches?”

Wyatt was definitely blushing now. “We got a little athletic.”

“A little athletic. Wyatt. You destroyed the entire kitchen.”

“You didn’t wonder why I told Jiya I’d spilled coffee on her notes and wouldn’t let her see them while I re-typed them? Or why the blanket got thrown out and Flynn wouldn’t let anyone wash it?”

“No, why on—” Lucy felt her eyes going wide as she realized. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt rubbed at the back of his neck. “So. Uh. This… thing. Between the three of us. It’s a go. If you still want it to be.”

If she still wanted it to be? Lucy could feel her heart soaring, feel real hope inside of her chest for the first time in weeks.

She jumped into Wyatt’s arms, hugging him tightly and kissing him on the cheek. “You stupid, ridiculous, beautiful men,” she told him, feeling Wyatt’s arms settle around her waist. “You’re both absolute garbage and I don’t know why the hell I’m in love with either of you.”

“Is that a yes?”

Lucy rolled her eyes, but she was smiling wide enough that her cheeks were starting to hurt. “Yes, you idiot, it’s definitely a yes.”

“Glad to know you approve,” Wyatt replied, tightening his arms around her. He had his arms around her. She could step into his arms whenever she wanted now, and Garcia’s, and nobody could stop her, she had them both.

“Are we okay?” Wyatt added, pulling away so that he could look her in the eye. “I know I… fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Jess, and all of that, and then uh, it’s not like Flynn and I exactly asked you—I mean I didn’t ask your permission to jump your boyfriend’s bones or anything.”

That was the first time that someone had called Flynn her boyfriend, actually. It made her feel a little giddy inside. “I was okay with it. Flynn and I talked beforehand.”

“But I didn’t talk with you.” Wyatt grabbed her upper arms, squeezing gently. “I haven’t talked to you about anything. About Jess, or how I was feeling, or… I’ve just left you out of it all. And that wasn’t fair to you.”

“What was there to talk about?” Lucy asked. “Of course you were going to go back to Jess, make it work, of course you were—”

“No.” Wyatt shook his head. “I treated you like crap, okay? I should’ve kept you in the loop.”

Something dawned on her, and she wanted to smack her head against the tree at her own stupidity. “It was Flynn, wasn’t it,” she said. “Who made you realize—when we talked, at Stonewall. That was what made you realize, it was that you were attracted to him, wasn’t it?”

Wyatt blushed, his eyes darting away to stare at a bush like it was the most fascinating bush he’d ever seen. “Uh.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe.”

“Wyatt Logan, you’re worse than a five-year-old, I swear. What is this, a drama show? You couldn’t have just told me?”

“How could I tell you? Oh, hey Luce, just wanted to let you know that I want to fuck your boyfriend, maybe, kind of, but don’t worry, I’m still in love with you so that’s a thing!”

“That’s basically what I told Flynn.”

“Oh, wow.” Wyatt’s eyes went wide and he looked back at her. “How’d he take it?”

“Seeing as he’s also in love with both of us, he took it rather well.”

Wyatt’s face got even pinker. “He—what?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Sort of? Maybe?” Wyatt ran a hand through his hair. “We were kind of having an argument at the time and then we were making out so… I mean, it might have just been the heat of the moment kind of thing.”

“Oh, my God.” Lucy really, really wanted to smack her head against a tree now. “This is why we should have gone with my plan, which was to sit you down and we’d talk over this like adults.

“Look: I’m in love with both you and Flynn. Flynn is in love with both me and you. You are in love with me and are attracted to Flynn. Did I get it all right?”

Wyatt coughed. “Still figuring out exactly where I stand on that very last part but um mostly? Yeah?”

“Well you can figure it out while we’re in the Lifeboat because when we get back—” When they got back she wasn’t letting either of them out of bed for a goddamn month. How much time had they all wasted, running around each other and their own emotions instead of just talking it out and thinking it through like adults? What was this, middle school?

Actually, she hoped middle school kids weren’t having all the sex that the three of them were having. And were going to have, if she had any say in the matter.

“When we get back what?” Wyatt asked, grinning, teasing. “You gonna put us in time out?”

“You’re impossible.”

“Says the most ridiculously impossible woman I’ve ever met in my life.” He was crowding up against her, wrapping his arms around her again, and oh, she’d missed this.

Maybe just one kiss wouldn’t hurt, right? They weren’t holding up time too much.

Wyatt kissed as softly as she remembered. Lucy hummed happily.

“I am sorry,” he whispered, brushing his lips over the curve of her cheek. “I should’ve—I wasn’t respecting how you were hurting. And I’m sorry.”

“Forgiven,” she told him, because she’d really rather be doing other things than bemoaning all their past mistakes.

Wyatt laughed, picking her up so that her feet left the ground. She shrieked instinctively, holding on, scolding him for scaring her.

“Um, guys?” Jiya emerged from the bushes. “I’m always up for hugs, but we’re on a schedule and also I really need a shower.”

“Oh, right, of course.” Lucy pulled away but grabbed Wyatt’s hand in hers. Her heart fluttered in her chest as he squeezed her hand.

Finally. Something she could be happy about.


	20. Chapter 20

The look of pure joy on Lucy’s face was something he never wanted to erase. If he’d had any doubts before, the way she’d all but vibrated with happiness when he told her what’d happened would have sealed it for him.

Also, yeah, the kitchen sex had been really great. Even if they’d had to make up some pretty colorful excuses to the rest of the team as to why there were now scratches in the table and how a chair and some plates had broken.

He grabbed her hand to help her step out of the Lifeboat but held onto it as they descended the steps. Hopefully Flynn would see it and know that they’d worked everything out, that they could—

Wyatt froze. “Where’s Flynn?”

Lucy froze as well, next to him. There was Mason, and Rufus, and Christopher…

But no Garcia Flynn.

Christopher got an odd look on her face. For one horrible, blinding moment, Wyatt thought she was going to say, ‘Flynn who.’

Flynn couldn’t have vanished. Wyatt's chest went tight, too tight, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. It felt like two police officers coming to the door of his house, ringing the doorbell, looks of sympathy and contriteness on their faces. He and Lucy and Jiya hadn’t changed things that much, they hadn’t—

But instead Christopher just said, “He’s in the med room, getting bed rest.”

Wyatt felt the band of iron around his chest loosen a bit. Flynn was here. He was here, he still existed, he was fine.

But wait, why was he in the med room?

“What?” The noise that came out of Lucy’s throat was hardly even human. “Why? What’s happened?”

“He got shot, leading some Rittenhouse agents away from the bunker,” Christopher said. “They must have put a tracker or something on Jessica when you rescued her. A backup plan, I suppose. Flynn led them away before they got here but he was shot in the process.”

“Why the hell didn’t someone go with him,” Wyatt demanded, anger burning hot in his lungs. “Why wasn’t somebody with him?”

“He was the only person here who could do it,” Christopher said calmly.

“Denise wasn’t here,” Rufus added. “Neither Mason nor I would be any good in that kind of situation. Flynn insisted we stay hidden.”

Stupid, self-sacrificing bastard. Of course he would insist on that. “How the hell did he get back?”

“He made it back here on his own,” Mason said. “Passed out on us trying to get back inside. He just woke up an hour ago.”

Lucy made a tiny noise in the back of her throat, her eyes wet. Wyatt wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hoping to steady her, despite feeling off-kilter himself.

“I’m going to see him,” Lucy declared. As if anyone was going to try and stop her.

“By all means,” Christopher said, stepping back out of the way.

Wyatt could tell it was taking everything in Lucy not to just sprint through the bunker to get to Flynn. He took her hand again, squeezing tightly. Panic was clawing at his throat and chest, panic he hadn’t expected, didn’t see coming.

When he got to the door of the med room, both he and Lucy halted. Another small sound escaped Lucy, almost but not quite a sob.

In all the time that he’d known him, Wyatt had never seen Garcia Flynn be still. He was always moving, pausing only to coil himself up for another attack, almost graceful in his deadliness. To see him just lying there, hooked up to equipment that Christopher must’ve called in a dozen favors to get… it didn’t feel right.

How long had he lain there, bleeding out, until Mason and Jiya had gotten a hold of Christopher, until Christopher had gotten a hold of the equipment, and brought it to the bunker? How close to death had Flynn come?

Flynn stirred, his eyes opening slightly. The corner of his mouth twisted up into a half-smile.

Lucy gave a real sob this time and rushed over to him, collapsing onto his chest and telling him that he was never allowed to do that again, never, or she’d come back and kill him herself, she would, she would, stupid man, son of a bitch, never do that again…

Wyatt stood, still frozen, staring at Flynn. Flynn automatically brought an arm up to pet Lucy’s hair, soothing her, but then his gaze rose to meet Wyatt’s. He raised his hand up as much as he could, extending it slightly.

Reaching for Wyatt.

Wyatt crossed the room, grabbing Flynn’s hand, startling himself with how tightly he held on. What if they hadn’t gotten the medical equipment to him in time? What if the bullet or bullets had been an inch deeper, or to the right, or to the left, up or down? What if Rufus and Mason hadn’t realized that Flynn was trying to get in the front door? What if… what if…

“Are you crying on me, Wyatt?” Flynn asked, his voice pitched low.

Wyatt snorted, wiping hastily at his eyes. “They never teach you how to dodge a bullet when you become a time-traveling villain?”

“Nah, I skipped class that day,” Flynn replied.

“I can’t believe you two are making jokes,” Lucy lectured, her voice muffled from being buried in Flynn’s chest. “You’re making jokes about this, you almost died, and I hate you both.”

“You keep saying that word, hate,” Wyatt said. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

Flynn squeezed his hand. “For the record, I kind of hate you too, Wyatt.”

Wyatt didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or leave the room in embarrassment. He knew he was blushing like an idiot right now. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t say it straight out, not yet, but he also wanted Flynn to know. “The feeling’s mutual, Garcia.”

Flynn’s look was soft, softer than Wyatt still thought he deserved, and Wyatt kind of wanted to pull a Lucy and just collapse and cry. He settled for squeezing Flynn’s hand instead, squeezing it until he thought he might break something.

Flynn squeezed back, just as hard.

Lucy blindly reached out, searching until she had grabbed Wyatt’s other hand and pulled it to her. “You two are not allowed to get shot again,” she announced. “No more. I put a ban on all bullet-related injuries.”

“Yes ma’am,” Wyatt told her.

Flynn was already fading again, his eyes sliding closed and his hand stilling in Lucy’s hair. “Whatever you say, Miss Lucy.”

Wyatt helped Lucy to get up onto the med bed properly, where she curled herself around Flynn’s side, clutching one of his large hands in both of her smaller ones. Wyatt just pulled up a chair—he wasn’t going to be sleeping anytime soon—and grabbed a book that somebody had left off to the side. _Heir to the Empire_ by Timothy Zahn. Probably Rufus, then. Or Jiya, making an effort on Rufus’s behalf.

He settled in to read, one hand holding the book, the other covering Lucy’s and Flynn’s hands. Just so they knew he was there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you all thought the sex was gonna happen this chapter didn't you. Mweheheheh.


	21. Chapter 21

Lucy stirred, wondering for a moment why her bed was an odd shape and not as soft as usual.

Then she felt a hand petting hers and blinked open her eyes.

Wyatt was sitting by the side of the med bed, a book in one hand. His other hand covered hers and Flynn’s intertwined ones. He smiled softly at her as she woke up.

“Hey,” he whispered. She hadn’t heard him sound like that since they’d woken up in Hedy Lamar’s house. Lucy wanted to curl up inside of that tone of voice and never leave.

Then her eyes flew open. Garcia. He was shot.

She sat up, careful not to jostle him, looking down at his face.

“He’s okay,” Wyatt whispered. “Just healing.”

Lucy ducked her head down, smiling. Wyatt had been keeping watch. Maybe this would work out after all.

She glanced over to see Wyatt carefully setting the book to the side, checking on Flynn’s vitals, the IV bag, the monitor. This was how Wyatt loved, she knew. He didn’t curl up into someone’s side, he patrolled the camp, checked the supplies, kept a lookout. If it had been Wyatt lying here and Flynn standing there, Flynn would’ve been up and out the door, hunting down the agents who’d done this. Flynn was the avenger, Wyatt the defender.

Lucy carefully brushed Flynn’s hair out of his face. He turned slightly into her touch but didn’t wake up.

She was hungry, and they should let him sleep.

Lucy carefully slid off the bed. Part of her wanted to clutch onto Flynn and never let him go, terrified that once she walked out that door, he’d die, or vanish.

Coming back from the mission, hearing Wyatt ask where Flynn was, seeing Denise’s face… it was awful. For a second, she’d thought Denise was going to ask, “Flynn, who?” And Lucy had felt her world crumbling beneath her.

What sort of awful life did she lead where a bullet wound was the lesser of her fears?

She looked over at Wyatt, who was carefully rearranging the blankets around Flynn. “If you fuss any more, you’re going to wake him up.”

Wyatt started, then blushed, embarrassed. “Just making sure.”

Lucy held out her hand to him. “C’mere. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

Wyatt came easily, taking her hand and wrapping an arm around her waist like there’d never been a time when he didn’t, couldn’t, never been a period of separation. “I’m really sure about this,” he told her.

It took her a moment to realize what he meant. Then she couldn’t stop herself from smiling if she’d wanted to. “Of course it would take one of you nearly getting killed to realize that. You’re both emotionally stunted.”

Wyatt laughed softly, pulling her out of the room and gently closing the door behind him. Whatever he was about to say died on his face, though, when he saw her expression. “Hey. He’s not going to disappear.”

Lucy couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. “I know. Just, when you closed the door—it’s a hard fear to shake.”

Wyatt gathered her up into his arms. Lucy didn’t know which she liked better: Wyatt’s hugs where she could lay her head on his shoulder, or Flynn’s hugs where she could bury herself in his chest.

But then, she didn’t have to choose anymore. She could like both.

“I can’t promise you anything,” Wyatt told her. “But I can promise you that we’re going to try, and in this moment, now, and for every moment that we can, we love you. I’ve doubted a lot of things in this whole venture, but I’ve never doubted that I loved you, or that Garcia loved you. It was what made us willing to try this in the first place.”

Wyatt paused.

“Okay well that and he’s hot, but, that was secondary.”

Lucy laughed, pulling back so that she could frame Wyatt’s face in her hands. “I know. I just—most people fear a breakup, or death, and I do, I fear that, but most people… most people don’t have to fear everyone else forgetting them. At least when you break up or one of you dies, you have other people there who remember, you got to be together at least. If one of you vanishes… technically we won’t even have had that. We won’t even have had a past.

“And then you start to wonder—was I crazy? Did I make it all up? Maybe I never had a sister. Maybe I was imagining things. And that… that scares me. I don’t ever want to doubt you. Either of you. I don’t want to be mourning another ghost.”

Wyatt kissed her, softly. “I know. But I think that’s why we need to live in the present. Here and now. Garcia’s safe, I’m safe, we’re all safe and we’re all together. And that’s all anybody can really ask for, is this moment, right? Isn’t that what all those philosophers say?”

Lucy nodded, kissing him again. She’d missed kissing him, missed it so much, how Wyatt made it deep and achingly sweet, holding her carefully, like she was something precious.

One kiss turned into two, then three, then multiple, Wyatt pressing her up against the wall, her legs spreading automatically, letting him slide a thigh in between, riding it and sliding her hands all over him until she was breathless and could feel her underwear getting damp and sticky.

Wyatt kissed down her neck, his hands roaming, his thigh pressing up until she moaned, grinding down against the pressure. Oh she was close, so close already, adrenaline and fear mixing in with arousal, with how much she’d missed him, wanted him, loved him, loved both of them—

Wyatt pulled back abruptly and Lucy nearly fell forward onto his chest. His eyes were wide and dark, and he was gasping, but he held himself carefully at arm’s length.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “We—we should wait, we have to wait.”

Wait? It took her a moment to catch up.

Oh. He wanted to wait for Flynn.

Lucy smiled, even laughed a little. “Wyatt Logan, don’t let anybody tell you that you aren’t sweet.”

Wyatt held up a finger warningly. “If you tell him—”

“Oh, I know, you have a reputation to maintain.” Lucy kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. We’ll wait for him.” She winked. “Sweetheart.”

Wyatt blushed but brushed his lips softly over her temple.

All they had was the present moment, Lucy reminded herself. Just be grateful for the present moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter's a doozy. You've all be so patient... soon you will be rewarded... (that makes me sound like a Bond villain yeesh).


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen and trash lords, the time of waiting is over! It's the scene you've all been waiting for! *jazz hands*

It took a few weeks for Flynn to be properly recovered. His wound was worse than Wyatt’s had been, but he was also better about letting it heal.

Lucy felt ready to jump out of her skin as the days passed. She finally had the two men on the same page, finally had both Flynn and Wyatt with her again, and now because of Flynn’s stupid heroics she was unable to have them the way she wanted.

She and Wyatt weren’t doing anything in the meantime. Flynn had some objections to that.

“I can watch,” he’d even suggested cheekily at one point.

Wyatt’s face had gone rather pink at that—but not, Lucy thought, in a bad way.

She filed that thought away for later.

She insisted on them talking the entire thing out. She wasn’t going to have one more second of indecision about this, one more moment of confusion or second guessing. They had to all be on the same page.

“I can be explicit, if you want me to be,” Flynn informed them.

Lucy was sitting on the edge of his bed and poked his foot. “Cut that out.”

Wyatt folded his arms. “I don’t—I mean. You guys can just. Let me know. What you want.”

“What you want matters as well,” Lucy told him. She knew that Wyatt must still have his doubts. She wanted to do her best to assay them.

Wyatt cleared his throat, shuffling his feet. “I know, I just—I’m not good with—you guys probably have a better handle on this than I do.”

Flynn snorted, then winced when the action strained his stitches. “Wyatt, if you’re in any doubt about—”

“I’m not,” Wyatt said quickly. “I’m just… going to have to get used to… saying things out loud, I guess.”

Lucy reached out to him, taking his hands in hers and squeezing gently. Wyatt relaxed a little. It was clear to her that they were going to have to be gentle with Wyatt at first, working him up to this relationship.

Flynn looked a little put out. Lucy wasn’t sure what to do about that—they couldn’t have one of them feeling unbalanced or left out in this relationship—and wondered if she should reach out to him as well.

To her surprise, however, Wyatt seemed to notice it as well. He released one of Lucy’s hands and used his now free hand to gently push some of Flynn’s hair back.

“It was in your face,” he said gruffly, by way of explanation.

Flynn just grinned up at him like he knew exactly what Wyatt was doing.

This just might work out, Lucy thought. She’d been having that thought more and more lately. That ‘just might’ was starting to turn into a ‘will’.

“So, arrangement,” she said, trying to keep them on track because now Wyatt and Flynn were kind of staring at each other stupidly and she wondered when they were going to realize just how gone they were on each other.

“Right.” Wyatt snapped to attention. “What do you two want?”

Flynn opened his mouth, closed it, and then looked at Lucy.

Okay. Apparently, it was up to her then.

Lucy cleared her throat. “I want to date both of you. I want to have sex with both of you and touch both of you, and I want to fall asleep with both of you. I want both of you for my boyfriends. I love you both equally.”

Wyatt squeezed her hand and Flynn nodded. “That’s what I want,” he confirmed.

He looked at Wyatt, those dark eyes boring into him. Lucy knew full well what it was like to be pinned by that gaze. Flynn let go of Wyatt’s hand and reached his hand up, cupping Wyatt’s cheek, thumb rasping over the bit of stubble that Wyatt never seemed to be able to quite get rid of.

“You don’t have to say it,” Flynn told him, quietly.

“Yes,” Lucy agreed quickly. “You can take all the time you need.”

“No.” Wyatt shook his head, but Lucy noticed that he was careful not to dislodge Flynn’s hand from his cheek. “I need to say it. I think it’s… important that I say it.”

He looked at Lucy, squeezing the hand that he still held. “I love you. I’m in love with you.” He looked over at Flynn. “And I—I’m pretty damn sure I’m falling in love with you, too.”

Lucy let out her breath slowly, trying not to show her excitement too much.

Wyatt turned his face carefully, his lips pressing softly into the curve of Flynn’s palm. Flynn was looking at Wyatt like he’d just been handed something precious, something breakable, and Lucy thought her own heart might break with how full it felt, seeing them, seeing how they looked at each other, feeling this moment and how impossibly much she loved both of them and loved how they—really seeing how they—loved each other as well.

Then Flynn grinned conspiratorially. “So this means that we’re definitely all having sex as soon as possible, right?” he asked hopefully.

Lucy rolled her eyes and caught Wyatt doing the same, which just made Flynn grin wider.

“I feel like you’ve been making a list of positions or something,” Wyatt said suspiciously.

“Why on earth would I do that?” Flynn replied in a not very convincing tone of voice.

“Nothing is happening until you get a clean bill of health,” Lucy reminded them both.

Wyatt had at some point taken the hand that Flynn was holding against his cheek and had moved it, now holding it against his shoulder, idly tracing patterns on the back of Flynn’s hand with his thumb.

Lucy couldn’t bite back her grin. The two of them were more gone on each other than either of them suspected.

“What?” Flynn asked, looking at her. “What’s so amusing?”

Lucy shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just happy, that’s all.”

Wyatt relaxed even more.

“I was starting to think we’d all be miserable until the end of time,” Lucy admitted.

“As did I,” Flynn said dryly. “Although I’d like to point out that was sort of your own faults.”

“I’m sorry, who didn’t bring up to me the fact that they thought I was only in love with Wyatt?” Lucy asked.

“And who decided that giving me a hand job was a great way to let me know you liked me?”

“Hey,” Flynn said, looking back and forth from one to the other. “I’m not sure I signed up for you two ganging up on me.”

“Pretty sure you did,” Wyatt countered.

“I thought you’d like the idea,” Lucy said sweetly, sure Flynn wouldn’t miss the added bit of meaning.

Flynn’s eyes darkened. “I wouldn’t mind that at all—but if we’re going to start pointing out flaws, here, Lucy _cher_ you do have to admit that you complicated things by not talking about things either.”

“I think I take the prize,” Wyatt mumbled.

Lucy brought Wyatt’s hand to her mouth, kissing his knuckles. She could see Flynn tighten his grip on Wyatt’s shoulder as well. “You took the time you needed,” Lucy told him. “That was important. You shouldn’t rush into these things.”

Wyatt nodded, his face going tight the way it had when she’d spoken with him in 1969. Lucy’s heart broke for him all over again. “Come here.”

Wyatt came easily, and she wrapped her arms around him, pressing a soothing kiss to his temple. Wyatt would need some time and encouragement, she felt, to be comfortable with the three of them together in front of others. But at least he seemed happy to receive and willing to give out affection when they were alone. That would be enough for now.

“Then we’re all in agreement?” Lucy asked, just to be certain. She pulled away from Wyatt and lay down on the bed, curling up into Flynn’s side. Wyatt leaned so that his elbows were braced on the bed, so that he could lean over the other two.

It felt easy, natural, like they were always moving like this, touching like this, keeping one another in each other’s orbit.

“Yes.” Flynn shifted to accommodate her better on the bed.

Wyatt nodded.

Lucy smiled. “Good. I guess we just have to wait for you to heal, then,” she added, looking at Flynn.

“Trust me, I’m well aware,” Flynn grumbled.

Wyatt just chuckled.

 

* * *

 

It was definitely difficult to not have sex. Not now that Lucy was his for the touching again, and when Flynn was doing a damn good job of pretending he was fine until he inevitably did something that made a flash of pain cross his face.

Wyatt thought he was going to claw his own skin off from wanting. He could kiss either of them whenever he wanted, and he’d quickly fallen back into the habit of touching Lucy when others weren’t around, putting his hands on her hips and kissing her neck. They were trying to keep it from the others for now, since otherwise explaining to everyone that no, he wasn’t helping Lucy cheat on Flynn, they were kind of all a thing now, was a hell of a lot more difficult when Flynn was passed out on the med bed and couldn’t confirm anything.

The touches helped a bit. He could sit and read on the med bed while Flynn idly ran his hands through Wyatt’s hair—Flynn had a thing for that and would pet Lucy’s hair as well—and Lucy would press a kiss to his mouth or cheek, just a quick one, whenever they were alone.

But it wasn’t enough—not nearly enough—he wanted Flynn inside of him again, against him again, wanted to be inside Lucy, to kiss her, both of them, properly.

Flynn had to heal up, though, and Wyatt hadn’t been the best example. He’d popped his stitches having sex, for crying out loud. He owed it to the other two to let his own body finish healing and to let Flynn recover properly.

Neither of them was really helping. Lucy and Flynn were troublemakers enough on their own, but Wyatt had failed to think about what would happen once they put their heads together about something.

Apparently, in this case ‘something’ was operation Drive Wyatt Crazy.

Everyone at the bunker was becoming an expert in first aid, but Wyatt with his active tours was still one of the best, and so it usually fell to Wyatt to fix Flynn’s bandages as he healed.

He was ninety percent sure that Flynn did _not_ need to moan that much, or arch into Wyatt’s touch, or put his hands all over Wyatt to ‘steady himself’.

Flynn would always act entirely innocent if confronted on it. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just trying to get comfortable,” and “sorry, just these stitches, they’re so itchy,” and “oh, was that your ass? Sorry.”

Lucy was no better.

“You know, I once thought you were the sane one,” Wyatt told her.

Lucy had been determinedly and very obviously deep throating a popsicle for the last five minutes. She slid the popsicle out of her mouth with a lewd pop. “Whatever gave you _that_ impression?” she asked.

So, yeah, basically Wyatt was in Hell.

“I’m getting both of you back for this,” he said, teeth gritted as Lucy ‘accidentally’ pressed up against him in order to grab something from the fridge.

“We’re counting on it,” Lucy replied, smirking.

Wyatt had to admit, though, that maybe all this anticipation was a good thing. It was giving him time to adjust to the electric feeling that buzzed through him at the thought of getting to be with both of them. The longer he waited and the more he got to think about it, the stronger his feeling of desire became and the better he was at shutting up the shame that tried to bubble up.

Not that he thought it would go away completely. Or that it would go away just from a couple of weeks and some good sex. If that was all it took to get rid of a lifetime of shame over sexuality, then Wyatt was pretty sure everyone would be cured by now.

But it was getting easier to think about and easier to accept about himself.

It helped that there were missions to go on still, things to distract him—important things, because, oh yeah, they still had to save the world and all that. Rittenhouse didn’t exactly stop for people to have a sexuality crisis and navigate a polyamorous relationship before resuming their world-dominating activities.

Then there was the day he walked into the med room… and Flynn wasn’t there.

For a second his heart stopped. Had something gone wrong? Where was Flynn? Was everything okay?

He could understand now why Lucy was always scared for them, panicking that if she let them out of her sight for even a minute they’d be gone. His heart was pounding and he couldn’t even begin to think about why Flynn wouldn’t be in the room.

“Wyatt!”

Lucy grabbed him and he jumped, turning around. Lucy frowned. “Everything okay?”

“Where’s Garcia?”

Lucy smiled—no, beamed, her smile wide and carefree in a way that he so rarely got to see. “He just got his stitches out. He’s just finishing a shower, said something about how he could feel the grime on him.”

Wyatt could feel anticipation swooping through his gut, hot and feral. He could see Lucy’s eyes darken and knew that she was thinking the same thing.

“I really, really wish we could get everyone else out of the bunker right now,” Wyatt admitted.

Lucy’s grin turned mischievous. “I had an idea for that.”

“Oh?”

 

* * *

 

Flynn couldn’t help but feel he’d been a bit of a bad influence on Lucy. “You did what?”

“I suggested to Rufus that everyone was a little stir-crazy and that he should take Jiya out on the Lifeboat to see something we wouldn’t get to see for a mission,” Lucy said. She sounded very sweet and innocent, like she hadn’t just found a way to illegally get Rufus and Jiya out of the bunker for at least a day.

“Rittenhouse was created during the American Revolution, right? And of course they’re trying to go farther back in time than that, Salem proved that, but they’re not going to be able to go as far back in time as, say, Ancient Egypt. There’s almost no point in going back that far and who knows what kind of ramifications it would have—and trust me, most of Rittenhouse is annoyingly white, there’s no way they’d fit in.

“So I thought that since Jiya loves ancient history and all, that it might be rather romantic for Rufus to take her to, say, when the pyramids were first built and they were still painted? Or to when the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were still around?”

“Let me get this straight,” Flynn said slowly. “You persuaded Rufus, the most law abiding out of all of us, to illegally commandeer the Lifeboat to take his girlfriend out on a date.”

“Yup,” Wyatt said. He sounded simultaneously shell-shocked and resigned, like he couldn’t believe that Lucy had done this but had sort of accepted it as fact.

“And where is Mason?”

Agent Christopher had her own home and family to go to and didn’t actually stay in the bunker. It was dangerous, as Flynn was happy to tell her—she was putting her wife and kids in continued danger—but as far as anyone knew, Agent Christopher no longer had anything to do with Mason Industries following the explosion of the facility and the subsequent death of everyone else involved and had barely escaped with her own life. And, Flynn supposed, they needed someone on the outside who could keep an eye out for Rittenhouse for them.

“Mason is asleep,” Lucy said quickly.

Too quickly.

Flynn looked at Wyatt. Wyatt sighed. “She gave him sleeping pills.”

He changed his mind, he was an _amazing_ influence on Lucy.

“I changed the coffee in the machine to decaffeinated and then put enough pills in his cup to knock him out for a good six hours,” Lucy said. She sounded rather proud of herself. “So this place is, effectively, ours.”

Wyatt made a _see what I have to contend with_ gesture.

Flynn wrapped an arm around Lucy’s waist and kissed her. “I knew there was a reason I fell in love with you.”

“We are going to be in so much trouble when Mason wakes up and the others get back,” Wyatt grumbled.

“But until then we have a lovely bunker all to ourselves,” Flynn pointed out. He could touch them, actually properly touch them, without worrying about pulling his stiches or furthering his injuries. He released Lucy so that he could pull Wyatt into him by the belt loops, brushing his mouth over Wyatt’s. “And you’re not exactly quiet, _liebling_.”

“I’m plenty quiet,” Wyatt replied, but he didn’t object to the endearment or the use of German, so Flynn filed that fact away for later. See how many German endearments he could get away with before Wyatt lost it either through irritation or embarrassment.

“You’re really, really not,” Lucy said, coming up from behind to wrap her arms around Wyatt and press a kiss to his shoulder. “But it’s okay, it’s cute.”

Wyatt tried to glare at both of them at the same and, obviously, failed, since Lucy was behind him and Flynn was in front of him.

Flynn wanted nothing more than to swoop in and kiss Wyatt, to strip both him and Lucy out of their clothes and run his hands over them until they were screaming, but first things first.

“We have a whole bunker at our disposal,” he noted. “So where are we doing this?”

“Not the beds,” Wyatt said quickly. “Hell no, not the beds.”

“I’ll ask Denise for better mattresses,” Lucy said, placating. Her hand trailed down to drag across the front of Wyatt’s pants, and she pressed a hot kiss to the side of his neck.

Fuck. Flynn had underestimated how hot watching the two of them would be. He could see as Wyatt’s eyes got dark and wide, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

“Living room?” Flynn suggested conversationally. He couldn’t wait another second. He slid his hands up Wyatt’s sides, underneath his shirt. Lucy gave Flynn a wicked look and flicked her tongue lightly over the tendon in Wyatt’s neck.

“Plenty of room there,” Lucy noted. “We’ll need blankets, though. For the floor.”

Flynn hummed his agreement, leaning in to nip at Wyatt’s bottom lip. Wyatt opened his mouth, panting, and Flynn’s eyes flicked down to see Lucy pressing the heel of her hand firmly to Wyatt’s crotch, grinding down a little.

“What do you think, Wyatt?” Flynn asked, probably a little cruelly.

Wyatt swallowed hard. “Uh—yeah, yeah, sure.”

“I’ll get them,” Lucy volunteered, stepping away.

Wyatt swayed dangerously on the spot, apparently leaning more on Lucy than he’d anticipated. “What?”

“Be right back!” Lucy said. She reached back around and gave Wyatt a squeeze, making Wyatt give a kind of groan-yelp. Lucy pecked him on the lips. “See? Loud.”

Then she all but skipped off to grab the blankets.

Wyatt looked a little dazed and Flynn couldn’t help but chuckle fondly. “C’mere.”

He took Wyatt’s hand and led him into the living room. About halfway there Wyatt started pawing at him, running his hands all over Flynn, pushing Flynn’s jacket off and fumbling to grab at his belt.

“Someone’s eager,” Flynn noted, turning around so that he could kiss Wyatt properly.

“Like you two weren’t fucking teasing me for the past week or however fucking long it was,” Wyatt said, pushing the words back into Flynn’s mouth, his hands greedy and his body slotting itself eagerly up against Flynn’s.

Flynn walked backwards, his hands sliding down to Wyatt’s ass to guide him and keep them pressed up against each other as he guided them back to the massive couch he’d unofficially claimed as his own since moving in.

Wyatt moved his hands to Flynn’s chest and shoved him back, making Flynn fall with a rather undignified _oomph_ noise. Before he could make a snarky comment about it, Wyatt was clambering into his lap, straddling him, grinding down and rolling his hips like a goddamn stripper or something.

“You—you sure you’ve never done this before me?” Flynn asked, grabbing onto Wyatt’s thighs and thrusting back up, shivering at the friction and pressure. “Because you really seem to know what you’re doing.”

“Lucy sent me some porn links to watch,” Wyatt replied.

Flynn’s brain short-circuited a little. Then he growled. “You two are showing me those links.” Oh, he had so many ideas already…

There was a soft _thump_ of fabric landing on the concrete floor and Flynn looked up, his hips stilling as he saw Lucy standing here. Her mouth was open and her eyes were dark, hungry, her cheeks flushed.

“Don’t stop on my account,” she said, her lips quirking upward into a smirk. She trailed her hand down, and Flynn could see her pinching her nipple through the fabric of her shirt. “I’m quite liking the view.”

Well, if she wanted a show… Flynn winked at her and thrust up hard into Wyatt, making him groan. His movements were more uncoordinated now, messy, desperate.

“Oh, you’ve been begging for it, haven’t you?” Lucy all but cooed.

Flynn swallowed, his throat dry. He didn’t know which one of them she was talking to, maybe both, but _fuck_ if her sweet, dominating tone of voice didn’t turn him on.

Lucy walked slowly around until she was standing behind the back of the couch. Her hands slid down Flynn’s chest, her hair spilling down around his face.

“Go on,” she whispered, definitely at Wyatt this time because she was looking at him. Her hands moved slowly, gently, down Flynn’s arms until she was grasping his wrists.

She took them off Wyatt’s thighs and moved them up to either side of his head, interlocking their fingers and pinning them there. Lucy was stronger than she looked, and Flynn could probably have broken her hold, but it would have taken some effort and he sure as hell didn’t want to.

Wyatt whined high in the back of his throat, and Flynn felt like his lungs were burning, fire in each inhale as Wyatt just kept grinding down on him, rubbing off on him like Flynn was just his toy, there for his pleasure.

“That’s it,” Lucy said, and her tone was still sweet but commanding, steel hidden inside it. “Take what you want, make him give it to you.”

Wyatt’s thighs were clamped tight around Flynn’s hips, and fuck, he hadn’t come in his pants since he was about seventeen, but he was real damn close now. He wanted to reach a hand down, get his hand in Wyatt’s pants, in his own pants, _something_. “Lucy,” he groaned, squeezing her fingers.

“No,” Lucy said, as if she’d read his mind. “No, you two are going to come just like this.”

Wyatt whined again. “Luce, Luce, I don’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Lucy said encouragingly. She released one of Flynn’s hands for a moment to reach over and stroke Wyatt’s cheek before pinning Flynn’s hand down again. “You’re doing so well, I know you can.”

Flynn thought he was going to go insane. He didn’t know which was hotter: Wyatt writhing on his lap uncontrollably, biting his lip, desperate and begging to come, or Lucy, pinning him down, commanding them, in control of them both.

He bucked up, hard, trying to give both him and Wyatt what they needed. “So good,” Lucy cooed, praising. She bent down and kissed Flynn upside down, sliding her tongue right in like she owned him.

In a way, she did.

She kissed him slowly, deeply, like they had all the time in the world. And Wyatt was still moving on him, relentless. When Lucy pulled back Flynn was breathless, gasping, everything short-circuiting.

“You like it when someone talks to you, don’t you Wyatt?” Lucy asked. “Do you want me to tell you how wet I am, watching you two right now? How badly I want to see you both lose control?” She bent down and kissed Flynn again. Flynn could hear Wyatt groaning and knew, just knew that Wyatt was getting off watching Lucy and Flynn kiss, and that just made Flynn all the more desperate.

“Come on,” Lucy whispered into Flynn’s mouth. “Give it to him, the way you give it to me, fuck, I’m dripping wet, Garcia…”

She looked up at Wyatt again, licking her lips, and shit the hungry, predatory look she just gave Wyatt was something Flynn was going to treasure for years. “Desperate for it, Wyatt? Huh?” She bent down, whispering so Wyatt couldn’t hear. “Tell him. He likes it when you order him around, he told me.”

Flynn groaned helplessly at that, but he swallowed hard and managed to grit out, “Wyatt. I want you to come for me. Come on, I want to see you, we both want to see you, just like this, come on.”

Wyatt gave a helpless, choked groan and Flynn could feel it, he could feel the way Wyatt shuddered, almost convulsing, and he could feel it right there, fuck, Wyatt coming in his pants. A wild bolt of arousal shot through him like a fucking electric shock and he came hard, hips jerking, the edges of his vision blurring.

“Oh, fuck,” Flynn spat out, his entire body buzzing. Wyatt slumped on top of him, bracing himself with his hands, looking up into Lucy’s face with a glazed, disbelieving look.

Lucy gave a gasping little _ah_ noise and Flynn realized that one of his hands was now free. He craned his neck backwards and saw that Lucy had her hand between her legs. He couldn’t see the rest because she was behind the couch but Flynn could easily guess what she was doing.

“Oh no you don’t,” he growled. “Get over here.”

Lucy pulled her hand away and quickly came around the side of the couch. Flynn felt loose-limbed but still charged, still wanting.

“We haven’t even gotten started with you yet,” he warned her.

He looked over at Wyatt, who had apparently also recovered going by the grin on his face. He was looking at Lucy like he had a hundred ideas and didn’t know which one to act on first.

“Oh hell no,” Wyatt agreed. He looked over at Flynn, grinning conspiratorially. “Now it’s your turn.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy’s breath caught in her throat as both men looked at her. She’d loved pinning Flynn down, watching the man who was usually so in control and commanding lose his mind and be at the mercy of her and Wyatt. And watching Wyatt just take what he wanted, shameless like that—she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been more turned on.

Now they were both looking at her like they wanted to eat her alive and, well, she far from minded.

Wyatt slid off Flynn and got to his feet, offering a hand up to Flynn. Lucy held out her hand as well, and Flynn took each of them, using them to haul himself up. “I think we’re all wearing too many clothes,” Flynn noted, his hand sliding possessively around Lucy’s waist, his eyes on Wyatt.

Lucy couldn’t agree more. She hooked her fingers in Wyatt’s belt loops and pulled him in, undoing his belt while Wyatt pulled his shirt off. Behind her she could hear Flynn moving around, and then she felt him press up against her from behind, his hands falling possessively to her hips.

She could hear Flynn humming right in her ear and she shivered, finishing helping Wyatt strip. Fuck, she had to run her hands all over him. Flynn’s presence behind her was reassuring, comforting, familiar. She hadn’t gotten to touch Wyatt in so long—she’d missed his broad chest, the tiny scars she had yet to memorize, his build stocky compared to Flynn’s lankier one.

Flynn purred behind her. “Gorgeous, isn’t he?” Lucy said, feeling bold when she could feel Flynn’s appreciation.

“Perfectly,” Flynn replied. She could well imagine the look on his face as he gazed at Wyatt. She’d seen the same look on Flynn’s face when he looked at her.

Wyatt shook his head at her. “You’re a little overdressed, wouldn’t you say?”

Lucy leaned back against Flynn, letting Wyatt pull her shirt up and off. She was starting to regret wearing jeans, or a bra. Or wearing anything, really.

“God, you’re perfect,” Wyatt murmured. He darted in, kissing her lightly. His hands slid around to her back to undo her bra while she felt Flynn’s fingers begin to wander, undoing her jeans.

Lucy’s breath came more quickly. Both men’s fingers were teasing, light, dancing over her skin. Flynn was slowly trailing his mouth over her neck, just a hint of teeth there to make her shiver.

Wyatt kept kissing her, getting bolder and dirtier until his tongue was all the way in her mouth, stealing her breath away. Flynn was getting more daring as well, pushing her jeans off and holding her to help her keep her balance as she blindly kicked them away from her.

She wound her arms around Wyatt’s neck. Fuck, she could feel him, feel both of them, Flynn hard behind her, pressing into her ass, while Wyatt was in front of her, his erection nudging between her legs, teasing her like the rest of him. Wyatt’s kisses were slow and deep and a little sweet, just like she remembered from their one night together.

One of Flynn’s arms wrapped around her waist, anchoring her and pinning her to him while his other hand left her hip and slid between her legs.

“Oh,” he drawled, his voice dark and rough. “You weren’t lying.”

Wyatt pulled back, his mouth red and swollen from kissing her, and looked down. Lucy’s breath hitched as she watched him, knowing what he was seeing, how wet she was, the way it slid down her legs and coated Flynn’s fingers.

Flynn’s fingers, which were circling her clit, dragging through her folds. Teasing her. She tilted her hips up, seeking more, but Flynn’s arm around her waist kept her still.

Wyatt got a slow, wicked smile on his face as he watched. “I’m definitely starting to see the benefits here,” he said.

Flynn chuckled, and Wyatt leaned over Lucy’s shoulder to kiss him. She tilted her head to the side so that she could watch, leaning her head back so that it rested on Flynn’s other shoulder.

Wyatt’s hands slid up her body, fondling her breasts, and Lucy let out a helpless moan. There were so many hands on her she couldn’t keep track of where anyone was. Every move that Wyatt made, where he touched her next, was a surprise and heightened by the feeling of Flynn touching her between her legs and keeping her pinned.

Flynn rubbed at her clit until Lucy was gasping, she could feel herself dripping onto the concrete floor. “Please,” she moaned.

“Please what?” Flynn asked, as Wyatt bowed his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth, tugging at it lightly for a moment with his teeth so that she could feel the sting before fluttering his tongue around it.

“I want—I need—” she couldn’t finish the sentence. She wanted everything, something, anything. She couldn’t even think.

Flynn slid a finger inside of her and she keened. “Is that what you want?” He asked.

Wyatt switched to her other breast, his hand moving down to trail his fingers across her stomach. Lucy imagined both men inside of her, their fingers both filling her up, and she shuddered violently. She wanted that, she wanted it so badly.

But this was good too—Wyatt’s hands roaming over her, his mouth all over her, Flynn’s voice at her ear and his fingers, now two of them, buried inside of her. His thumb rubbed relentlessly at her clit, making her knees give out.

“What do you want?” Flynn asked again.

“Anything,” Lucy gasped, admitted, confessed. She’d do anything they asked her to in that moment, maybe in any moment.

Wyatt gave a low groan and kissed her again, licking right into her mouth without hesitation. Flynn sped up his fingers and she felt Wyatt’s hands tighten where they gripped her hips, hard enough to bruise. She grabbed at his shoulders, holding on, knowing she’d collapse if she tried to stand on her own.

“Oh God,” she cried out, feeling Flynn add another finger as Wyatt tore his mouth away from her to kiss Flynn again. “Garcia, Wyatt, I can’t, I can’t—”

She couldn’t what, she didn’t know, she just knew that she couldn’t anymore, couldn’t handle the overstimulation. Wyatt pulled away from Flynn with a soft wet sound and turned to put his hand in Lucy’s hair, gently tugging her head further back. Flynn sucked at her bared throat as Wyatt’s eyes bore into hers.

“You’re beautiful,” Wyatt whispered, lust and love making his eyes full and dark. His other hand ghosted down to lightly trace where Flynn’s fingers slid in and out of her, making obscene noises. Wyatt slid one of his fingers inside of her and she screamed.

Flynn’s mouth came up to cover hers, pressing down hard so that she screamed into his mouth. Wyatt, Flynn, both of them, either of them, she didn’t know anymore, were still touching her, still moving inside of her and rubbing her clit, prolonging it all, there was a mouth at her breast again and she felt almost like she was convulsing with the force of it.

She pulled away finally, her head falling back onto Flynn’s shoulder, her body shaking with the aftershocks. Oh, fuck. She’d never come that hard in her life.

She could feel that both men were starting to get hard again now, behind and in front of her—which had probably been their plan, get her off and give themselves time to recover.

Lucy shivered. She wanted at least one of them inside of her before all this was over.

But first, both Wyatt and Flynn probably needed a little extra time before their bodies were completely ready again. And they certainly both deserved a thank you for that orgasm.

Lucy raised her head up, locking eyes with him. She then flicked her eyes in the direction of Flynn. She felt herself smirk as Wyatt got a conspiratorial gleam in his eye.

Then she sank to her knees.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt didn’t often go around wishing he was a younger man. His younger self had been more stupid, more reckless, less experienced, and also, frankly, not as good of a fighter. He liked the age he was at, late blooming sexuality crisis aside.

Every once in a while, though, he fervently wished he was about ten years younger.

Because the sight of Lucy sinking to her knees in front of Flynn was hands down one of the hottest things he had seen in his life.

Lucy looked up at him through her lashes, then flicked her gaze over to Flynn. It was probably all the missions they’d been on together, but Wyatt was still amazed at how much she could say to him without words, with just a look.

He took Flynn’s chin in his hands, tilting his face up, and kissed him.

One of Flynn’s hands came to rest at the small of Wyatt’s back, tucking Wyatt into his side. Wyatt felt Flynn stiffen and then Flynn bit his lower lip, growling into Wyatt’s mouth.

Wyatt wrapped his arm around Flynn’s shoulder, his hand coming up to grab the back of Flynn’s neck and hold him in place, sliding their tongues together. He really should’ve guessed long before that Flynn would be good at this, the way he constantly licked and bit as his own lips, hinting at an oral fixation. Wyatt could already feel his lips becoming swollen and slick and he knew if he looked in a mirror he’d appear completely debauched.

He kind of liked the idea.

“Oh, fuck,” Flynn gasped, his nails digging into Wyatt’s back as he shuddered. Wyatt pulled away, looking down to see what Lucy was doing.

His throat went dry as he stared down at her. Lucy was taking Flynn down her throat like she was going to die otherwise, like she’d been practicing this for months—and she had been, hadn’t she, God knew she’d had plenty of access to him all this time. Wyatt could so easily imagine her doing that to him instead, swirling her tongue around the head of his cock—but it was also plenty hot to watch her do it to Flynn, to feel the way Flynn was shaking with the effort of keeping his hips still.

Wyatt tangled the fingers of his free hand in Lucy’s hair, tugging lightly. Lucy moaned appreciatively so he did it again, harder. Lucy whimpered, pulling off.

“Harder, don’t stop,” she told him, her voice sounding absolutely wrecked.

She started licking all over Flynn’s cock and Wyatt honestly couldn’t tell who groaned at that—Flynn or him. Maybe it was both of them.

Wyatt tugged on Lucy’s hair harder, forcing her head into a position that made it easier for Flynn to start rocking his hips lightly, sliding in and out of her mouth. Lucy hummed approvingly.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand around his cock. He looked up to see Flynn staring down, staring at both Lucy and at Wyatt’s cock, fully hard now and weeping with precome

Wyatt pressed kisses all over Flynn’s face as Flynn started to stroke him, too slow and too loose to really get him off, just enough to drive him even crazier. Flynn snarled, frustrated as Wyatt kept teasing him, dodging his mouth to kiss his cheek or forehead or jaw instead, until finally he let go of Wyatt’s back and grabbed him by the hair, holding him in place the way that Wyatt held Lucy so that he could plunge his tongue into Wyatt’s mouth.

One or both or all of them shuddered—Wyatt couldn’t tell. It was all messy, spit and slick, hands and mouths everywhere.

Then he felt a hand at his hip and he was being shoved away. He stumbled, nearly falling, and shook his head a little to clear it.

Flynn also looked dazed, but Lucy was standing up now, wiping casually at her mouth like she’d been eating a juicy apple rather than sucking dick.

“Blankets,” she ordered.

Wyatt felt pleasure crackle up his spine.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, helping Flynn in grabbing the blankets that Lucy had dumped to the side.

This was quickly turning into the best damn night of his life.

 

* * *

 

Flynn nearly lost his balance and went crashing into the floor when Lucy shoved him and Wyatt away. His chest was heaving, his head pounding in that kind of way that it only got when blood was rushing euphorically through him.

He hadn’t known where the hell to look—at Lucy, on her knees, taking him in her mouth like she was starving for it, or Wyatt, face flushed and mouth hanging open, or even at his own hand around Wyatt’s cock, stroking him teasingly, keeping him ready without giving him the pressure he really needed to get off.

Flynn felt like he’d been damn near close to sensory overload when Lucy had pulled off him with a wet _pop_ and had shoved both him and Wyatt back, getting to her feet.

“Blankets,” she said.

Ah, yes, right.

Flynn grabbed the blankets with Wyatt and quickly spread them out so they wouldn’t do something like bash their head in on the concrete. He was rewarded with a thorough kiss from Lucy for it, as was Wyatt.

“How do you want this?” he asked, not sure which one of them he was asking and not really caring. Whatever they wanted, however they wanted to do this, that was what he wanted.

Lucy had a gleam in her eye that told Flynn she had a good idea of what she wanted—and she’d thought of this whole thing first, had been fantasizing about it while Flynn and Wyatt still had their heads up their asses, so it made sense that she’d have a good idea or two.

However, Lucy then looked to Wyatt. Flynn knew she was trying to keep him comfortable, making sure he knew he had control in this. He could definitely appreciate that. Wyatt could still back out at any time and Flynn wouldn’t judge or blame him, but he would miss him—miss him like a limb.

Wyatt fidgeted for a moment, eyes darting from Flynn to Lucy and back again, and Flynn realized the poor guy was overwhelmed.

“What are some things you’ve thought about?” Flynn asked, coming over to him and brushing their mouths together. Wyatt seemed to relax so long as one or both of them were touching him, and sure enough once Flynn had his hands on him, the tension in Wyatt’s body visibly dissipated.

“I’ve thought about Lucy a lot,” he admitted, looking at Flynn like Flynn might be angry with him.

Flynn stroked up and down Wyatt’s sides, trying to show him that he wasn’t angry, not in the least.

“What have you thought about?” Lucy asked. She walked over and took Wyatt’s hand, stroking the back of it with her thumb.

Wyatt blushed. He really was fucking adorable. “Things we didn’t get to do the first time.”

“Like?” Lucy prompted gently.

“Like my mouth on you,” Wyatt said quietly. “Making you come from that.”

Flynn could easily picture that scenario and his dick twitched in interest.

“And with Flynn?” Lucy prompted again.

Wyatt swallowed hard, Flynn could see the way his throat bobbed. They were going to have to teach him how to give a blowjob—and Flynn knew from experience with other things that Lucy was a very, very good teacher.

“I want… what we did the other day,” Wyatt admitted. He went from Lucy to looking at Flynn, the blue of his eyes almost gone with how wide and dark his pupils were. “I want that, again.”

Flynn had to lock his knees or risk tumbling to the floor. Fuck, yes.

“Come here, then,” Lucy said. She tugged on the hand she was holding and led Wyatt to the couch, turning and sitting on it and tugging Wyatt down.

Wyatt went easily, gaze locked on hers. Flynn had only seen glimpses of this Lucy, this gently in control Lucy, but he was really looking forward to seeing a hell of a lot more of her in the future.

Lucy buried a hand in Wyatt’s hair and guided him onto his knees, spreading her legs. “Go on then,” she instructed.

Flynn had to swallow several times, his mouth and throat dry. Wyatt bent his head and began licking his way up Lucy’s inner thighs, biting once, leaving a pretty little mark that he sucked on until it was bright red and purple. Flynn took himself in hand and stroked lazily, watching, feeling his eyes grow hooded.

Lucy’s gaze flicked up to him and a wry smile crossed her lips. “Go on, Garcia,” she said, in that same gently ordering tone of voice.

Flynn didn’t need to be told twice. He crossed over to them, grabbing the lube and condoms that Lucy had helpfully brought along with the blankets. He knelt behind Wyatt, smoothing his hands over the skin of his back, soothing him and letting him know that Flynn was there.

Wyatt paused for a moment, turning to look over his shoulder. “C’mon, Garcia, don’t get all gentle on me now,” he teased.

The grin Flynn gave him was feral, he could feel it, could feel the way his teeth were baring so that it was almost a snarl instead of a smile.

“Well then, if you insist.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy had to grip the couch so hard she started to fear she’d rip it. Her hips arched up helplessly as Wyatt dragged his tongue over her clit again and again.

“Please,” she gasped, even though she didn’t know what she was asking for at this point.

She didn’t know where to look. Wyatt had his hands on her thighs, keeping her pinned down, his tongue relentless. Flynn was behind Wyatt, helping him be propped up, legs spread, his dark eyes alternating between watching Lucy and watching his own fingers slide in and out of Wyatt.

He was clearly teasing Wyatt, she could see that—as if the way Wyatt would sometimes whine and shove his hips back at Flynn in a silent demand to get on with it wasn’t enough of a clue.

Flynn draped himself over Wyatt’s back, possessively, the same way he would drape himself over her, and Lucy felt a hot thrill go through her. Flynn was kissing his way down Wyatt’s spine, teasing but attentive, and she didn’t know which was getting to her more—Wyatt’s tongue licking inside of her or seeing Flynn touch Wyatt the way he touched her, seeing proof that Flynn loved Wyatt the way that he loved her.

She didn’t want this to ever stop, but she also wanted—needed—this to end, or at least Wyatt’s mouth on her. She was so close, she could feel it like something just outside the reach of her hand, something she could brush with her fingertips but not yet grab.

“Wyatt,” she cried out, trying to shove her hips further down, stopped by his arms pinning down her legs. “Please, please, come on…”

“I do love listening to you beg,” Flynn mused. He was obviously enjoying watching her, his eyes hungrily darting from her face down to where Wyatt was licking her open, making her fall apart.

She could feel the fire building up at the base of her spine, between her legs, melting her. Her breath was coming in harsh pants, her back arching and collapsing, arching and collapsing, like a puppet on a string.

Wyatt hummed, pulling back to bite lightly at her thigh again before moving back up to press his tongue to her clit. Flynn stroked his free hand up Wyatt’s side around to his front. Lucy couldn’t see what happened but she sure as hell could guess, because Wyatt made a noise of pleasure and surprise and bit down on her lightly, making pleasure-pain ricochet through her.

“I think we should let her come, don’t you?” Flynn asked Wyatt. Or, well, he was ostensibly asking Wyatt, but Wyatt couldn’t exactly answer when his mouth was full—full of her, her leaking into his mouth and smearing his lips, tongue pressing into her with pressure so different from fingers and perfect in its own way, hot and wet, his breath ghosting over her.

Oh God, she wanted to come, she wanted to come so badly.

Wyatt dragged his teeth over her clit, and she cried out. Flynn shot her a feral grin.

“Perfect,” he said. “Go on, then, darling.”

She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to Wyatt, maybe to both of them, but either way Wyatt moved his hand from her leg to slide a couple fingers inside of her, alongside his tongue. A few pumps with that extra friction and she was gone, nails digging painfully into the couch, unable to catch her breath as stars exploded behind her eyes.

 

* * *

 

Watching Lucy come was like a goddamn miracle.

He could feel her, taste her, flooding his mouth, the scent of her skin and arousal all around him, making him foggy with need. Flynn’s fingers were relentless inside of him, finding his prostrate and hitting it every time until Wyatt felt like he was drowning, caught between Lucy and Flynn, his hands gripping Lucy’s legs with so much force he feared he was bruising her. God, he was a shaking mess, but he loved every second of it.

Lucy was a wreck herself, although he couldn’t see her without pulling away. He could feel her shaking under him, her hips doing their damndest to thrust the way that they wanted to, the way his hands were preventing her.

He thought he might lose it himself when Flynn told her to _go on then, darling_. Wyatt actually suspected that Flynn might also be talking to him—and didn’t that made him shudder, Flynn ordering him, calling him darling.

Not that he’d ever admit any of that out loud. Yet.

He felt her start, her entire body going stiff, remembering the same reactions that she’d had last time they’d done this together. He pulled back, and got to see Lucy’s eyes going wide, her mouth dropping open as she cried out, her entire body shaking.

He couldn’t stop himself from grinning, feeling a little smug. He’d done that. He’d made her into that shivering wreck.

Flynn dropped a kiss onto his shoulder. “Good job,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

Wyatt couldn’t stop the instinctive shudder his body gave at the praise. Flynn twisted his fingers slowly, three of them now, his pace becoming leisurely. “You ready?” he asked.

Wyatt nodded, pushing himself back onto Flynn’s fingers. He’d been ready ages ago, his whole body feeling stretched out and too tight, strung out on the white-hot almost-too-good feeling.

Lucy slowly raised her head up. “Inside me,” she said, her throat rough.

Flynn’s fingers didn’t pause, exactly, but they stuttered for a moment in their rhythm. “Who?” he asked.

“I don’t care,” Lucy said. She shimmed down the couch and Wyatt wrapped his arms around her, preventing her from falling to the floor. “I really don’t, either, please—”

Flynn’s fingers slid out of him and Wyatt pushed himself upwards, so that his back was now plastered to Flynn’s chest. Yes, like this—this would work, this would work so well… he shivered in anticipation, the pulsing need that seemed to beat in time with his heart almost unbearable.

“Yes,” Flynn said, as if he’d read Wyatt’s thoughts. He wrapped an arm around Wyatt’s waist to steady him and keep them pressed together. Wyatt could feel Flynn’s erection nudging at him, so close to where he wanted it, and he pressed pack harder, silently asking for more.

“C’mere, Luce,” he said, spreading her legs wider. Lucy took his face in her hands and kissed him, moving against him like a cat in heat, practically purring to complete the picture.

“Nobody’s ever going to be allowed to sit on this couch again,” Wyatt mumbled into Lucy’s mouth, feeling her smile.

“That’s because it’s my couch,” Flynn said.

“We really need to talk about your territorial streak.”

Flynn reached his hand down and stroked Wyatt a few times, hard and fast, making fire stutter in Wyatt’s lungs. “Clearly you’re too lucid for what we have in mind.”

Lucy grinned and shimmed her hips. “Come on,” she said, all but begging, wrapping her arms around Wyatt. He was pressed up against her thigh, so close, just a slight change in angle and he could be inside of her. He could feel Flynn behind him, could hear the distinctive sound of a condom being opened, and he thought he might be dizzy with the implications of it all. It was like going from drunk to sober, or maybe the other way around, all in the span of a second.

He was going to be in Lucy. Flynn was going to be inside him.

Well, if he died… at least he’d die happy.

 

* * *

 

“I might die,” Wyatt admitted.

“What a way to go,” Flynn murmured.

“You two are ridiculous,” Lucy said. She rolled her eyes even as she let Wyatt nudge her legs farther apart, even as she obligingly rolled the condom onto him—stroking him a little cruelly as she did so. “I don’t know why I’m attracted to either of you.”

“Sure you do,” Wyatt said with a smile, and then he was sliding his way inside of her.

It was tight, but between the fingering and then Wyatt’s tongue keeping her loose and sated, it wasn’t too tight. She liked the feeling, liked a little bit of a burn as Wyatt moved into her. She could tell he was being careful, trying not to hurt her. She stroked his face, his shoulders, his arms, letting him know she was okay, that he could move more.

Flynn looked like a coiled spring, waiting—and that was probably wise, because she knew the second he entered Wyatt—because it made Wyatt thrust into her instinctively, a grunt working past his clenched teeth.

Lucy almost wanted to laugh. Oh, poor sweet Wyatt, caught between a rock and… well, caught between something, anyway.

This position wasn’t going to get her off, it was just a little too awkward for that, but oh God, the view was amazing. First class. She ought to sell tickets or something.

Not that she ever would because if somebody even tried taking either man away from her she was going to claw their eyes out but anyway.

The contrast in their skin tones, in the shape and build of their bodies, the way Wyatt looked overwhelmed, his eyes closed and mouth open, the way Flynn looked starving and almost predatory, his eyes gleaming and jaw clenched. She almost didn’t need Wyatt inside of her—although she did want that, wanted to be filled that way, thick and hot and making her feel a little like she was being torn in two, like no part of her really was alive or mattered except for where he was thrusting into her. But she could almost be okay without that as she watched the two of them together.

She hadn’t realized this when they’d first had sex, since there’d been a real give and take between them, a soft earnestness to it all, and she’d been happy to let Wyatt take the lead a little on a few things. But Wyatt apparently really, really liked it when she or Flynn or both were in control—and she was more than happy with that position. She could see how Flynn was gripping Wyatt, holding onto him tightly the same way he’d hold onto her when he was pounding into her, practically holding Wyatt in place so that he could set the pace.

She hooked one of her legs over Wyatt’s shoulders. She wouldn’t have been flexible enough for that a few months ago, but a couple of months of yoga with Jiya and athletic sex with Flynn was doing all kinds of wonders for her legs. “You’re doing so well,” she said, encouraging Wyatt, thinking he might need it. “You feel—you feel really good, you look really good, it’s so hot, fuck, you’re both so hot.”

Wyatt definitely moved with more confidence as she said that, timing it so that he could thrust into her as Flynn pulled out and then push himself back onto Flynn as Flynn thrust into him. Coordination, Lucy thought, almost laughing at herself. It’s the new sexy.

As much as she liked watching them, though, as much as it gave her a beautiful thrill of dirty-wrong-perfect, she knew she wasn’t going to come this way. It was the wrong angle, just not enough, not what she needed. It teased her, frustrated her, giving her only some of what she wanted but not enough.

Wyatt seemed to notice it as well, because he paused, reaching up to stroke her hair and tuck it behind her ear. “I’ve got an idea.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt wasn’t sure if Lucy would be down for this, but it was a position that had worked well for him and Jess a lot of the time—in fact it had come to be one of Jess’s favorites—and it would make it easier for them all to move together.

He pulled out, gasping as the change in angle thrust Flynn right up against his prostate, making him see stars.

“Flip over,” he told Lucy. Never had he been so grateful for three layers of blankets.

Flynn stroked him soothingly, up and down his sides, over his stomach, as Lucy got a dark, thrilled look in her eyes and obligingly slid onto her knees, underneath Wyatt.

“Go on then,” she said, purring the words.

Wyatt slid into her again, and he could tell immediately the change in angle was giving her what she needed by the way that Lucy cried out on his first hard thrust inside of her.

“Oh my God,” she said, shoving herself back onto him. “Yes, just like that.”

It was so much easier to move this way, rocking back and forth between them, caught in a haze of skin and sweat and lust. It felt like he was choking in the best goddamn way. Flynn could touch Lucy this way too by wrapping his arms around Wyatt, all of them connected. Lucy was tight and hot, and he could bury his face into her neck, her sweet-smelling hair that still carried the citrus scent of her shampoo, lighting up inside as Flynn continued to unerringly find that sweet spot inside of him. It felt like he was slowly coming apart, unraveling, and all he could do was shove and shove against the pleasure, trapped in the best way.

“I’m—” Lucy gasped out, probably overstimulated at this point, her hand coming back to claw mindlessly at Wyatt’s skin, at Flynn’s. “I can’t, I’m—”

She didn’t even get to finish her sentence. Wyatt, perhaps a little cruelly, reached his arm around and rubbed at her clit, his fingers slipping a little but it must have been enough because he could feel it, he could feel her clench around him almost painfully tight, blissfully tight, as she cried out again.

…and yup, that was the sound of a blanket tearing.

 

* * *

 

Lucy honestly hadn’t been sure how long it would take her. She’d thought that the men would finish first, that she’d come twice, she wouldn’t be able to get it up again that soon.

Then she’d felt the weight of them over her, behind her, felt Flynn’s fingertips, his arms just long enough to reach, trail up her sides and Wyatt was at that perfect angle inside of her and then his hand, oh fuck, Wyatt was reaching around and touching her, rubbing her clit, and it was all too much, fuck, fuck, being touched everywhere and filled up and—

She screamed, her hands yanking and twisting the blankets underneath her. There was a distant, familiar sound, one that she only recognized as the blanket tearing when she blinked the stars out of her eyes and could look down again, see clearly again.

“Oh, fuck,” she gasped out, her chest heaving.

That was it, white flag, she was checked out for the night.

She wanted to keep Wyatt inside of her, wanted to feel him come inside of her, but her legs and arms were trembling now, vicious in their desire to make her collapse.

She moved forward, moaning a little at the loss as Wyatt slid out of her. Wyatt groaned as well but she quickly turned around, catching his face in her hands.

Her body might not be crying out surrender but that didn’t mean she couldn’t watch… or talk.

 

* * *

 

Flynn wasn’t surprised when Lucy all but collapsed after that third orgasm, her legs practically giving out on her. She pulled away and he felt as well as heard Wyatt made a pained noise of loss.

But then Lucy was turning around and catching Wyatt’s face in her hands, pushing his hair back, kissing the sweat off his skin. “You’re doing so well,” she cooed, one of her hands coming down and quickly stripping the condom off of him. Flynn couldn’t see it but he could sure as hell hear it as Lucy started pumping Wyatt, her eyes locked on him.

Flynn was pretty damn close, not knowing which was hotter—watching Wyatt fuck Lucy, watching her come apart, or feeling Wyatt helplessly clenching around him, writhing on him.

He wanted to just watch next time, maybe give instructions—as Lucy seemed happy to be doing earlier and right now.

“Harder, Garcia,” she said, her gaze still locked on Wyatt. “You can take it, sweetheart, look at you, you’re doing so well.”

Right, praise kink for Wyatt and domme Lucy. He was definitely going to take advantage of both of those things later when his brain wasn’t leaking out of his ears.

“Do you want him to leave bruises?” Lucy asked. “I like it when he does. I like seeing them in the mirror later, makes me feel claimed. You like leaving them on me, don’t you?” she asked, looking up at Flynn.

He was going to have a heart attack and die but that was okay because everyone would know he died doing what he loved.

“Don’t hold back,” Lucy instructed, and he honestly didn’t know which one of them she was talking to. “I want to see you, both of you, don’t hold back.”

Flynn wasn’t sure he was even capable of holding back anymore. Everything was narrowed down to the tight, slick friction of Wyatt and Lucy’s dark, commanding voice.

He wanted to be sure, though. “Lucy,” he growled out.

“You can,” she confirmed. “You can, you may.”

He shoved into Wyatt a final time, feeling like he was exploding, or maybe it was imploding, from the inside, fireworks going off inside of him and beating against the inner layer of his skin. He heard Wyatt shout and felt him shudder violently, felt the dim satisfaction and pride that came with helping someone else to orgasm, and then he kind of blacked out a little.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Wyatt really became aware of was that he’d gotten come all over Lucy.

She seemed not to mind—in fact she was looking rather proud, scarily like Flynn with her smug smile as she surveyed the mess all over her legs and chest.

He kind of had the urge to lick it up, but that would require moving, and he didn’t think he could even feel his legs at the moment, so.

They’d kind of all collapsed on top of each other. Wyatt didn’t know really where he ended and Lucy or Flynn began, or vice versa. They were like a kind of multi-limbed being, all tangled up in each other, hearts beating and chests heaving as one.

Lucy was the first to recover. She poked and prodded at him and Flynn until they could get to their feet.

He didn’t even want to think about the mess they’d just made. Lucy quickly gathered up the blankets and threw them in the laundry while Flynn disposed of the used condoms and Wyatt checked that they hadn’t left any stains anywhere on the couch.

The shower afterwards was lovely, steam filling up the room, hazy like the fog in his brain. They couldn’t seem to stop kissing each other. He washed Lucy’s hair, feeling the soapy strands, taking far longer than he needed to just because he liked the little contended noises she made. Flynn turned the spray onto him and Wyatt yelped, dodging, laughing, letting Flynn catch him when he nearly fell, both of them letting Lucy try and lecture them—which was hard to do when she was laughing.

It was easy to imagine that the rest of the world didn’t exist when they were just in there together. It was a crappy bathroom and half the time Wyatt was pretty sure he was going to get some awful disease or something but right now it was shutting out the rest of the world and for that there was nowhere else he’d rather be. It was just the three of them, nobody else, no Rittenhouse and no complicated timelines or dead family members or even annoying roommates whose names started with Connor and ended with Mason.

It was just the three of them, together, touching each other, reaching out like they weren’t really whole unless some part of them was connected to the other two. In that space, an oddly liminal space, Wyatt could believe that nothing else mattered. That they had each other and that would sustain them.

“We’re going to use up all the hot water,” Wyatt said at one point.

“Don’t care,” Flynn replied, tracing pictures on Lucy’s back with the soap.

And, well, maybe just this once they could be a little selfish.

By the time they all toweled off, Wyatt thought he was half asleep already. Lucy was definitely in no shape to do anything, including walk under her own power. Wyatt held open the doors while Flynn carried her, careful not to let her head or feet bump into anything.

They basically staggered into bed in the men’s room. Mason wasn’t in there—God knew where he’d passed out, then—so Wyatt helped Flynn shove two beds together to create one large enough to accommodate all three of them.

There wasn’t really any talking about it. They just all got in bed together by mutual, silent agreement, like this was natural.

Maybe it was.

They didn’t really bother with pajamas. It was warm, and Wyatt knew he definitely didn’t feel like rifling through his things to find something to put on. He just threw his ruined clothes and theirs into the washer along with the blankets.

Lucy climbed into bed first, immediately claiming the middle. Flynn took Wyatt’s hand, his eyes dark and soft, and led him over, settling in with his back against the wall.

Wyatt took Lucy’s other side, wanting to protect her, closest to the exist. She was so much smaller than they were, she fit nicely in between the curve of their bodies.

When Wyatt lay down Lucy immediately flopped her legs onto him, her arm reaching back to grab Flynn.

For the first time in weeks Wyatt didn’t feel the need to talk. There was no need to ask questions or explain himself.

He draped his arm over Lucy. Flynn did the same, so that they were now also grasping one another. Connected.

“G’night,” Lucy breathed quietly, the words slurred and barely audible.

Flynn’s thumb stroked Wyatt’s skin and he mumbled something in Croatian.

Wyatt wanted to say something… but he felt so warm, so safe, so… content, for the first time since he could remember.

He was asleep before he could get any words out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all been so patient, I just hope this was as good as you all were hoping!


	23. Chapter 23

Flynn woke first, as always.

They’d all gotten tangled up in each other in the night, having kind of collapsed and then passed out after everything. Wyatt was facing him, their legs tangled up together, his face mashed into a pillow. Lucy was lying kind of sideways, half on top of Wyatt, the rest of her burrowed underneath a tangle of blankets, one arm thrown over Flynn’s waist.

He just stared at them for a minute. Both of them looked kind of rumpled, and whoever said sleeping people were attractive was obviously lying, but that wasn’t what kept him staring.

They were asleep, deeply asleep, with him. Trusting him. Staying with him.

To think, with how they had started, that they had ended up here… it felt like he had defied some insurmountable odds, like he was Sisyphus who had somehow managed to actually roll the boulder up the hill and gotten it to stay.

Was this why the older Lucy had looked at him the way she had? With such deep, unshakeable love that he had been unable to do anything but fall in love with her right back? Was this where they had ended up for her? Or had it been different?

And did it really matter?

Wyatt grumbled something in his sleep, his hand moving restlessly over a pillow. Searching for something.

Flynn reached out almost without thinking, intertwining their fingers. Immediately Wyatt relaxed, his movements ceasing, except for a tightening of his fingers around Flynn’s.

He’d been so scared last night. It felt like a final test, a way to see if all three of them could really do this, could actually manage this. And while he knew he didn’t deserve either of them, never would, to know that they wanted him—well. He was a selfish man, and he’d never claimed to be a good one. If they were willing to give, then he would take. He would do it until he died if they let him. His feelings of unworthiness hadn’t quite gone away, but his fears mostly had. Lucy was curled up into him, and Wyatt was reaching for him even in sleep.

He had passed, and he would do whatever it took to keep it that way. To keep them with him.

Flynn gently pulled away, helping Lucy to get vertical on the bed and arranging the blankets around her so that she didn’t get cold. She gave an unhappy murmur as he untangled himself from her, but a few soothing pets to her hair had her fully asleep again.

Wyatt was dead to the world now, that one assurance apparently all he needed. Flynn would have actually feared Wyatt was dead if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Then he padded into the kitchen to make coffee.

To his surprise, Mason was there, blearily drinking a cup and staring at some notes. He glanced up as Flynn came in, blinking. “Oh, is it morning already?”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Pull an all-nighter?” Well that explained why they hadn’t had any awkward moments last night. Mason must have woken up from his drugged sleep and gotten straight to work, and Rufus must have just slept with Jiya in the women’s bedroom.

“Yup. Used to do these all the time. Got to start carrying my weight around again, you know,” Mason said. Flynn thought that he might be the only person capable of hearing the trace of bitterness in the edges of his voice. He, too, knew what it was like to feel inadequate.

He set up the coffeemaker, deciding to be generous for once and make Mason a cup as well. Not that it was going to become a habit or anything.

A few moments later, Lucy stumbled in. She was wearing her bathrobe and was dragging a cranky-looking Wyatt by the hand. “See? Coffee,” she said, pointing. “Also you,” she added, gesturing for Flynn to come over to her.

Flynn had been wondering how this part was going to go. Were they going to hide it? Pretend nothing was going on? He had no idea how the others were going to take their relationship. It wasn’t like such things were normal. But then, nothing about them or their situation was normal.

His questions were answered when Lucy tugged on his shirt until he bent down and she could kiss him. “I’d be mad about you sneaking out, but you made coffee.”

“I figured you were expecting it by now,” Flynn replied, unable to stop himself from settling his hands at her shoulders as usual.

Wyatt cracked an eye open. “If that coffee isn’t ready in the next thirty seconds, I’m gonna hurt someone.”

“Cranky,” Lucy teased, releasing both of them to go and grab a mug. “I’ll pour it for you too. Just so you know, Garcia, who the spoiled one in this relationship is.”

“Definitely you,” Flynn replied.

Wyatt kind of tipped forward until his head was resting on Flynn’s shoulder. “Coffee,” he repeated.

Flynn brought his hand up to rub soothingly up and down Wyatt’s back. “ _ein Moment, meine Geliebte_ ,” he murmured.

Lucy passed Wyatt a cup, and Wyatt sank a little more against Flynn as he sipped at it, resting his head completely on Flynn’s shoulder so that Flynn’s arm ended up around his waist. Lucy passed Flynn his mug, and then took her own, hopping up onto the counter so that she was eye level with Flynn and could wink at him as she took a sip.

Flynn wasn’t the type to really smile. He hadn’t ever been, honestly, even before losing his family. He was more prone to smirks and scowls. But he could feel a small smile on his lips and let himself relax into it, staring at Lucy, knowing she could read the adoration in his gaze even if he wasn’t grinning at her like most people would.

Lucy smiled back, reaching out her hand and smiling even more when he interlocked their fingers.

Wyatt was waking up slowly, in increments, as the coffee started to hit his system. “I ache everywhere,” he muttered.

“Oops,” Lucy said, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

Flynn turned, brushing his nose through Wyatt’s hair. He’d never say it out loud, since Wyatt would and could elbow him right in the kidneys, but Wyatt’s crankiness was kind of adorable.

“Not that this happy domesticity isn’t nauseatingly cute or anything,” Mason drawled from the kitchen table, “But some of us have been up all night and could use some of that liquid caffeine.”

Wyatt jumped fully awake, stepping back from Flynn and Lucy like he’d been scalded. He glared at Mason.

Flynn glared at Mason too. He liked sleepy cuddly Wyatt.

Lucy was much more forgiving. “Here you are,” she said, procuring another cup, pouring the coffee, and bringing it over to Mason.

She squeezed herself in between the two men upon her return, wrapping an arm around Wyatt and leaning her head into Flynn’s chest, sipping her coffee with her free hand. “Settle down, boys,” she murmured, quietly enough that Mason couldn’t hear.

Flynn watched and, oh, it was a lovely thing, to see Wyatt realize that he actually wasn’t doing anything wrong, to see the tension visibly dissipate as he wrapped an arm around Lucy and shot Flynn a small, almost shy smile over the rim of his coffee mug.

Flynn felt warmth bloom in his chest that had nothing to do with the coffee.

This was actually going to work out. This was something he got to have. Something he got to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter. I can't believe this is almost over. Thank you all for your lovely support and never fear--more OT3 stories are in the works, including a lovely fluffy fic dump for you all!
> 
> Also, the German translates to "in a moment, my love" (in case you all forgot that Flynn was a sap). Many thanks to captainofthefallen for the translation.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, folks. Our epilogue. Thank you all so much for coming on this ride with me. I'm overwhelmed and overjoyed by the response to this.
> 
> Dedicated to captainofthefallen.

Some things didn’t change that much.

Rittenhouse was out there, for one thing, and they didn’t really seem to notice or care about the interpersonal relationships between their enemy team members.

Mason was entitled and annoying as all get-out.

Jiya and Rufus were disgustingly cute.

Agent Christopher was still in charge and still mom-ing all of them to death.

But some things were different.

Bedrooms had been rearranged, for one thing. The men’s bedroom was now Wyatt, Lucy, and Flynn’s room. The women’s bedroom was now Jiya and Rufus’s room. And they’d all spent a weekend helping to unlock and air out one of the empty rooms for Mason to move into.

Wyatt liked to sleep on the edge of the bed, Lucy behind him, because he got hot and would stick out an arm or a leg while he slept to cool down, and because he liked to be closest to the door. Lucy always ran cold, and so she was sandwiched in the middle, which suited both Wyatt and Flynn just fine since it meant they could protect her best that way. Flynn was the big spoon with his back against the wall, because he was a control freak who had to be the big spoon and hated the idea of somebody being able to sneak up on him.

They all had their quirks. Lucy would sometimes get the wild urge for sex in the middle of the night, which Flynn wasn’t a fan of because you disturbed Flynn’s beauty sleep on pain of death, so usually she would crawl over to Wyatt and kiss him until he woke up and obliged her. Wyatt on the other hand was a huge fan of ‘oh thank God we’re not dead after that mission’ sex and had poor impulse control, which could lead to some awkward moments like when he started making out with Lucy or stuck his hand down Flynn’s pants and someone else walked in. Flynn liked to leave marks, including bite marks in places that couldn’t be hidden. Both Lucy and Wyatt got good at using makeup to cover them up.

Flynn liked to make Wyatt uncomfortable, especially in public, grabbing his ass or calling him pet names just to get Wyatt pissed off. He claimed that ‘vexation brought such a lovely color’ to Wyatt’s face. Wyatt was the opposite of a morning person and had to be lured out of bed with coffee or he could and would kick whoever was trying to wake him in the face. Lucy thought best with classical music playing and was a night owl, so she’d stay up researching, music playing through her headphones, while the other two slept on either side of her—or sometimes in the living room, if the glow of her computer screen was too much for them.

There were other things, too, things most people probably didn’t have to deal with.

Lucy would wake up in the middle of the night crying, shaking one or both of them awake, asking over and over again, “Do you remember me, do you know who I am, do you love me, who am I?” She was never content until they both told her that they loved her, they knew who she was, they weren’t leaving her.

Wyatt would sit straight up from sleep, reaching for his gun, seeing things that weren’t there. It had taken both Flynn and Lucy a couple of times to realize that Wyatt was actually still asleep when this happened, and then a couple more times of trial and error to learn the best way to wake him up: claim they had a better angle on the intruder, get the gun, re-holster it, and then prevent Wyatt from lunging for it again and talk (or slap) him awake. For obvious reasons, Flynn was best for that. Once Lucy had done it and just ejected the magazine, which resulted in a long argument about Wyatt being unable to protect her should an actual threat later come through the door, which had led to everyone in the bunker waking up to yelling, and really, nobody wanted a repeat of that.

Other times Wyatt sat up fully awake, and just ran into the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet. Lucy was best for that, running her hands through his hair, soothing him, while Flynn got a bottle of water for him to drink.

Flynn woke up silently, usually in a cold sweat, and would go and sit in a chair, head between his legs or in his hands, unable to sleep the rest of the night. It was a toss up depending on who woke up—Lucy noticing the chill at her back, the absence of Flynn’s heat, or Wyatt, feeling the soft movements, his soldier’s instincts alerting him to a change of position.

There wasn’t really anything to be said during those times. Just sitting with Flynn, maybe holding his hand, until the sun came up.

And then there were the little things, things that they themselves didn’t notice because it just felt so natural to fall into things that way, but others around them certainly did.

Flynn made coffee for Lucy and Wyatt every morning. Just Lucy and Wyatt. Nobody else.

Lucy would drape herself over Wyatt and Flynn’s laps while they watched a movie, pouting until one of them started petting her hair.

Wyatt touched Lucy softly, unconsciously, constantly, whether others were around or not. But he only touched Flynn when he thought nobody else was around. Then he’d slide up to him, let Flynn press him back against the counter or wrap his arms around Flynn’s neck, letting Flynn paw and nuzzle at him all he wanted.

Rufus had snuck a few pictures of them at it. He’d been taking a lot of pictures lately, thinking that everyone might need them someday.

Lucy’s journal started to contain more sketches of both men. Some were G rated. Some were decidedly not. Flynn almost wished that there were sketches of him and Wyatt together in there so that he could have figured this whole thing out much sooner, but then, he and Wyatt never sat still for two fucking seconds when they were together, or so Lucy said after throwing her pen down in frustration.

Flynn picked Lucy up a lot. Not just when she was tired, although he would, scooping her up and carrying her to bed. Wyatt would do the same sometimes, only giving her a piggyback. But if Lucy was in the way, Flynn would just pick her up and move her five feet to the left. If there was ever a quiet moment followed by an outraged, “Garcia Flynn!” it was usually because he had just unnecessarily picked Lucy up and moved her out of his way.

Lucy was always cold. Always. So she would burrow in against Flynn or Wyatt’s sides or even squeeze in between them if they were standing close enough, practically purring as she got to soak up their body heat.

Wyatt stole Lucy’s scarves and hats and Flynn’s shirts and sweaters and jackets and basically anything Flynn wore that he didn’t then nail down. Lucy would steal their leather jackets, sometimes, and Flynn could be found buying oversized sweaters just so that Wyatt and Lucy could swipe them from him—although he’d deny it if asked.

Flynn was the one who cooked. Wyatt tried. Lucy also tried. Tried being the operative word. But sometimes Flynn would just get this itch and he’d bang around in the kitchen until he’d made shrimp paella or something equally random.

Flynn would waltz Lucy around the room, whispering in French in her ear as she giggled. They’d use it just to drive Wyatt nuts sometimes too, since he couldn’t understand them. Wyatt and Flynn would have their arguments in German—and they did argue, although not nearly as much as anyone had expected. Usually about little things that turned into big yelling matches when they weren’t talking about big things that they should be, like Wyatt’s habit of moral superiority and Flynn’s habit of making last-minute horribly thought-out decisions. But it was also for when Flynn—and it was usually Flynn—apologized, although Wyatt would always give in and duck his head and apologize as well, letting Flynn come up behind him and wrap his arms around him, talking low in his ear, and for when one of them wanted to be sappy but didn’t want the rest of the world to know it, quietly saying endearments that only the other could understand.

Sometimes, Flynn would mutter something in Croatian. It would be late at night, when he thought the other two were asleep, or on a mission right after one of them had just escaped death or they’d rescued Wyatt or Lucy from a bad situation. Wyatt didn’t understand but decided he didn’t have to—if Flynn had wanted them to know what he was saying, he’d have done it in a language they knew. Lucy learned, privately, but didn’t tell Flynn. Her curiosity just wouldn’t let her go without knowing, but she knew that there were still sometimes, some things, where Flynn could only be vulnerable if he thought nobody knew.

The fights could be epic. They weren’t as often as one might think, three very different people with very strong opinions, but they happened.

Flynn and Wyatt fought the most, but their fights were little things, tiny arguments that were easily smoothed over. It was almost a natural part of their give-and-take, their banter that had become more obviously flirtatious and affectionate with time. Easy to start but easy to end, apologies given quickly.

Lucy and Flynn fought fiercely, yelling, in French and English, snapping and snarling like two alley cats, and always, neither of them willing to be the one to apologize. Everyone dove for cover when Lucy and Flynn fought, although they’d long since learned to just tune out Flynn and Wyatt. Inevitably Wyatt would have to play emissary, talking them both down, slowly working them towards a reconciliation.

Wyatt and Lucy fought the least, but it was the scariest. They got cold with one another, distant, their words low but harsh and cutting and tense. Crying would be involved. Wyatt was always the first to apologize, then, after days without talking and Flynn literally locking them both into a room (didn’t matter which room) so they had no choice but to talk it out. It always made the others sad, a heavy weight settling over everyone, when Lucy and Wyatt were at odds like that.

Very, very, very rarely, all three of them were fighting one another. Those were the worst. That was when doors slammed, and silence was broken only by yelling.

They always made up, though, in the end, and God help anyone who was around when the makeup sex happened.

Not that they didn’t have their moments of doubt. Lucy sometimes feared that she was greedy, selfish, that she was only setting herself up for more pain by letting herself have this and then inevitably having it be taken away. Wyatt would mentally back away, thinking that he was wrong, they were wrong, for doing this, his roots rearing their ugly head and filling him with self-loathing. Flynn would think he didn’t deserve them, either of them, and wondered if it was only a matter of time until they realized it, too.

But they got through it. And for each awful moment there was the time Flynn tried and failed to make breakfast while drunk, or laughing until their sides ached, or scheming on joint birthday presents, or pranking Wyatt, or when Lucy went back to the Civil War and tried and horribly failed at doing a southern accent, or when Wyatt would try and fail at teaching the other two Farsi.

They still went about gallivanting through time, saving the world. But now there were two warm bodies to crawl into at night, two pairs of hands to protect and soothe, two mouths to kiss in greeting or goodbye before or after a mission.

Now there was something to tie them together. Something that, they liked to think, not even Rittenhouse could tear apart.

Although if they forgot to put the chair in front of the door one more time while having shower sex, Rufus just might tear them apart.

It was cliché, or so Flynn liked to snort. It was doomed, or so Wyatt would grumble with a roll of his eyes. It was dangerous, or so Lucy would think when one of them was placed in danger and the other two would lose their minds and all common sense to get them back safe.

But it was theirs. They were all learning, and rapidly, that the present moment was all they could count on, and in the present moment, this belonged to them.

And that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the idea of an ending has you feeling down, I've just posted Put it With the Rest of the Garbage, a series of fluffy oneshots featuring our Trash OT3, so feel free to enjoy those as a consolation present!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bailamos](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17639681) by [SugarsweetRomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarsweetRomantic/pseuds/SugarsweetRomantic)




End file.
